WATER-CLOCKS, CLEPSYDRAS…

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[197]. The invention of them is by Vitruvius[198] ascribed to Ctesibius of Alexandria, who lived under Ptolemy Euergetes, or about the year 245 before the Christian æra[199]. 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 measurers of time which were used in courts of justice, the clepsydra is a Grecian invention, first adopted at Rome under the third consulship of Pompey[200]. 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[201].

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 1643[202], 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 cylinder, and puts it in motion[203]; much like the quicksilver puppets invented by the Chinese[204].

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[205]. 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 Taliaisson, professor of law at Toulouse, and a young clergyman named De l’Isle.

Alexander says more than once that this machine was invented 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 describes 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[206].

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 expressly on these water-clocks, which Ozanam got translated into French by one of his friends, and caused to be printed with his additions[207]. This translator says that water-clocks 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[208].

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[209]. 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 country, 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.

[A very ingenious application of the principle of the clepsydra, for the purpose of measuring accurately very small intervals of time, is due to the late Captain H. Kater. Mercury is allowed to flow from a small orifice in the bottom of a vessel, kept constantly filled to a certain height. At the moment 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 original course. The weight of mercury in the receiver, compared with the weight of that which passes through the orifice in a given time, observed by the clock, gives the interval between the events.]

FOOTNOTES

[197] [Sextus Empiricus (Adv. Math. cap. 21) says that the Chaldæans divided the zodiac into 12 equal parts, as they supposed, by allowing water to run out of a small orifice during the whole revolution of a star, and dividing the fluid into 12 equal parts, the time answering to each part being taken for that of the passage of a sign over the horizon.]Return to passage

[198] Lib. ix. c. 9.Return to passage

[199] [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.]Return to passage

[200] Auctor Dialog. de Caus. Cor. Eloq. 38.--The orators were confined to a certain time; and hence Cicero says, latrare ad clepsydram.Return to passage

[201] Some account of the writers who have spoken of the water-clocks of the ancients may be found in Fabricii Bibliograph. 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.Return to passage

[202] In that year Kircher’s Ars Umbræ et Lucis was published for the first time. In the edition of 1671, several kinds of water-clocks are described, p. 698.Return to passage

[203] A particular account of these water-clocks is to be found in Ozanam, Recréations Math. et Physiques [republished in Hutton’s Mathematical Recreations, ii. 40]. Bion on Mathematical Instruments.Return to passage

[204] Muschenbroek, Philos. Natur. i. p. 143.Return to passage

[205] Journal des Sçavans, 1691.Return to passage

[206] 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 practical mathematics, having remarked the faults of these clocks, bestowed much labour in order to bring them to perfection; and by a number of experiments, 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. Littéraire de la Congr. de St. Maur, ordre de S. Bénoit. Bruxelles, 1770, 4to, p. 478.Return to passage

[207] Ozanam, ii. p. 475.Return to passage

[208] 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.”Return to passage

[209] Art du potier d’étain, par Salmon. Paris, 1788, fol. p. 131.Return to passage

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 themselves, 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 carbunculus. 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 Æthiopia, but that in the time of Pliny no stone was known under that name[210].

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 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. Theophrastus, 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 latter 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 mineralogy, but could not find the lyncurium in it, supposes that it may have been the hyacinth[211]. However ridiculous the cause 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[212].” If we consider its attracting of small bodies in the same light as that power which our hyacinth 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[213]. Had Theophrastus been acquainted with the latter, he would certainly 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 retain its virtue for a long time.

The duke of Noya Caraffa believes the theamedes of the ancients to have been the tourmaline[214]. 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 magnetic iron. This account has been thus explained by Boot[215]. To induce us to consider the theamedes as the tourmaline, Pliny ought to have said that it attracted iron and then repelled it.

With much greater probability may we consider as the tourmaline a precious stone, classed by Pliny among the numerous varieties of the carbuncle[216]; for however perplexed and unintelligible his account of the carbuncles may be, and however 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 transcribers Solinus and Isidorus[217].

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 Bütner[218]. This stone indeed cannot with much probability be taken for the tourmaline, as all precious stones, when heated, have the same property; but it is worthy of remark, that, like the lyncurium of the ancients, it belongs 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 believed 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 accurate descriptions of the properties of that stone were given in German works ten years before. The earliest information that I know respecting it is in a book now almost and justly forgotten, entitled Curious Speculations during Sleepless Nights[219]. In a passage, where the author, speaking of hard 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 endeavouring 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 produce 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.”

This whole passage has been inserted word for word, without variation or addition, and without telling the source from which taken, in a book perhaps equally forgotten, called Observationes curioso-physicæ, or Remarks and Observations on the great Wonders of the World, by Felix Maurer, physician[220]. This thick volume is entirely compiled from a number of works, the names of which are not mentioned.

In the Catalogue of the collection of natural curiosities belonging to Paul Hermann, which were sold at Leyden in June 1711, I find, among the precious stones, Chrysolithus Turmale Zeylon. 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 properties: but I find no mention of it either in his Cynosura Materiæ Medicæ, or in Musæum Zeylonicum.

In the year 1719 the Academy of Sciences at Paris announced 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[221]. It is there called a small magnet, though some difference between the two stones was admitted; but the German naturalist 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 is expressly 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 lyncurium; Pliny, 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 magnet, 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 this 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 Natural History which is often printed with Hübner’s preface; but I do not know to whom the honour belongs of having first investigated the properties of this stone. As the above dictionary is common, I shall give here only a very short extract from it:--“This stone was brought to Holland by some persons 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 ascribes to its being united with martial sulphur. The chrysolites and other precious stones of the island do not possess the same property.” As the author quotes the Laboratorium Zeylonicum, I consulted it, but found no information in it respecting the tourmaline. The first person who thought of explaining the property of the tourmaline by electricity was the great Linnæus, who in the preface to his Flora Zeylanica[222], 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 Linnæus only conjectured, Æpinus proved at Berlin in 1757 by accurate observation and experiments, when endeavouring 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 Academy 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 certain yellowish tourmalines, that is, those which are yellowish by refracted light, possessed the remarkable property of absorbing 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 subsequently 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 tourmaline in optical science, the colour of the tourmaline being a disadvantage which is entirely removed in the use of Nichol’s prism[223].]

FOOTNOTES

[210] Theophrast. De Lapidibus, edit. Heinsii, fol. p. 395, and Plin. lib. xxxvii. c. 3, and lib. viii. c. 38.Return to passage

[211] Epiphanius De XII Gemmis.Return to passage

[212] J. de Laet De Gemmis. 1647, 8vo, p. 155.Return to passage

[213] Phil. Trans. vol. li. 1. p. 394.Return to passage

[214] Recueil de Mem. sur la Tourmaline, par Æpinus. Petersb. 1762, 8vo, p. 122.Return to passage

[215] Gemm. et Lapidum Historia. 1647, 8vo, p. 441, 450.Return to passage

[216] Plin. lib. xxxvii. c. 7.Return to passage

[217] India produces also the lychnites, 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 obstinately resists the art of the engraver.--Solinus, c. lii. p. 59. Traj. 1689, fol.Return to passage

[218] “Hager albuzedi is a red stone, but less so than the hyacinth, the redness 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.Return to passage

[219] Curiöse Speculationes bey Schlaf-losen Nächten, 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.Return to passage

[220] Frankf. 1713, 8vo.Return to passage

[221] I shall here lay before the reader the whole passage, taken from Histoire de l’Académie for 1717, 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....”Return to passage

[222] “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 property, discovered and observed in this stone alone, when neither heated by motion nor by friction.”Return to passage

[223] [Light is called polarized, which, having been 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 evanescence, 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 sections cross at right angles, the image of the candle vanishes. Thus the light, in passing through the first plate of tourmaline, has acquired a property 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 altogether 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 transmission in other positions at right angles to the former.]Return to passage

SPEAKING-TRUMPET

Instruments by which the voice could be so strengthened as to be heard at a much greater distance than would otherwise have been possible, were known in the earliest ages; for of all musical instruments, wind instruments were first invented, and their use in war to give the signal of battle, we find mentioned in Job[224]. 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[225]. It was known likewise that the larger trumpets emitted a louder and stronger sound. The Grecians had a wind instrument with the bellowing noise of which the people who were placed to guard the vineyards frightened away the wild animals[226]. All these wind instruments however were little in comparison with the monstrous trumpets of the ancient Chinese, a kind of speaking-trumpets, or instruments by which words could not only be heard at the greatest distance possible, but could be also understood[227]. 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 manuscript, 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[228], but in my opinion without reason. Aristotelis Secretum Secretorum ad Alexandrum Magnum 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. Morhof 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[229]. If we compare what is said there and by Kircher, we may make the following conclusion:--

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 we 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 edition of Achillinus[230]. 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. Duhamel however relates that a Frenchman tried it, and discovered the real instrument[231]; but this information is of little weight, as it is much to be doubted that this Frenchman caused it to be made sufficiently exact according to the ancient description. I am as little acquainted with Bettini as Morhof; but I suspect 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[232]. This was rather an ear-trumpet than a speaking-trumpet, and it is certain that the former was invented 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[233]. 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[234]; 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[235].

Sir Samuel Morland, an Englishman, and the jesuit Kircher, 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 experiments upon it the year preceding. This instrument, shaped like a wide-mouthed trumpet, he caused first to be constructed 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[236].

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 assertion 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 Umbræ 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 Kircher. 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[237]. He does not however say expressly that he had ever tried the experiment; 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, supposing this to be true, it can only be said that he then approached very near to the invention of the speaking-trumpet, by an instrument, which, in reality, however, was calculated 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 Musurgia the trumpet invented in England.

In the Phonurgia, however, written after Morland’s publication 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 anything 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 represents it as a proper speaking-trumpet, and adds, that it excited much surprise, on account of the uncommon strength which it gave to the voice. For this reason he was very desirous 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 published his Magia Naturalis[238] in 1657, before the invention of 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 Recreations was first printed in 1677, and the third in 1692. Besides these testimonies, Kircher quotes also Eschinard concerning sound[239]. 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[240], who refuses the invention to his countryman, and gives it to Kircher. When I unite all the evidence in favour of Kircher, it appears to be certain that he made known and employed the ear-trumpet earlier 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[241].

When Morland’s invention was made known in France, it 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 speaking with them at a distance[242].

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 converse 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[243]; as did Sturm[244], Conyers[245], Hase and others afterwards. The last who investigated the theory of the speaking-trumpet was Lambert[246]; 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 Hassenfratz (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 cloth 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 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, finally enabled to escape and to spread themselves along the atmosphere[247].”]

FOOTNOTES

[224] Goguet. i. p. 326.Return to passage

[225] Plin. lib. xvi. c. 38, p. 32.Return to passage

[226] Septalii Comm. in Aristotelis Problem. Lugd. 1632, fol. p. 206. There is also a passage to the same purpose in Seneca, Epist. 108.Return to passage

[227] See Anciennes Relations des Indes et de la Chine, de deux voyageurs Mahometans, qui y allèrent dans le neuvième siècle. Par Renaudot. Paris, 1718, 8vo, p. 25.Return to passage

[228] Ars magna lucis et umbræ. Amst. 1671, fol. p. 102. Kircher repeats this account with some new circumstances in his Phonurgia, p. 132.Return to passage

[229] Morhofii Diss. de vitro per vocis sonum rupto, in Dissertationibus Academicis. Hamburgi 1669, 4to, p. 381.Return to passage

[230] Morhof quotes the following passage:--“With this brazen horn, constructed 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 sonorous metals were combined in the composition of it.”Return to passage

[231] “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.”Return to passage

[232] Bettini Apiaria univ. Philosophiæ Mathemat. Bonon. 1642, fol. p. 38.Return to passage

[233] Magia Natural. lib. xx. c. 5.Return to passage

[234] “To communicate anything to one’s friends by means of a tube. This can be done with a tube made of earthenware, though one of lead is better, 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 distance. 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.”--Lib. xvi. c. 12.Return to passage

[235] Mathematische Erquickstunden, i. p. 243.Return to passage

[236] An Account of the Speaking-trumpet, as it hath been 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.Return to passage

[237] Among the antiquities of Syracuse in Sicily, one beholds with wonder chambers and galleries which are hewn out in the solid rock, and particularly a grotto, from which arises a winding passage, that becomes upwards 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 passage, he might hear everything the prisoners said, or what plots they formed against him. This grotto therefore is called Orechio di Dionysio, or la grotta della favella; auris Dionysii, the ear of Dionysius. Many travellers and others formerly imagined that this passage was an ingenious imitation of that part of the human ear called the helix, which was first remarked by Alcmaon the Pythagorean. This is the account given by Kircher, who was there in the year 1638. See his Phonurgia (published 1673), p. 82, where there is a figure of it. In later times, however, this grotto has been examined with more skill and acuteness by people less 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 remarked by Schott, who was there in 1646, as he expressly says, in opposition 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 all heard 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 confining prisoners can be either planned out or constructed.” But it cannot 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 dangerous persons. “The common people attacked the tyrant’s friends, and seized those whom they called his emissaries (προσαγώγιδας), 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, however, 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 invention of the ear-trumpet. See the Travels of P. de la Valle, Ray, and Brydone; Delle antiche Siracuse, da G. Bonanni, &c., 2 vols. fol. Palermo 1717. Dan. Bartolo del suono e de’ tremori harmonici, Bonon. 1680, who examined this grotto as a naturalist. D’Orville, Sicula. Amst. 1764, pp. 182, 194.Return to passage

[238] This machine was invented by Kircher, in imitation of the ear of Dionysius; nor is it a vain and empty speculation, for the machine produces 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 projected into the garden of the college, and the less entered his chamber. 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.Return to passage

[239] Eschinardi Discursus de Sono Pneumatico, p. 10.Return to passage

[240] Physico-theology.Return to passage

[241] 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 Englishman ever applied this speaking instrument, at least in so perfect a manner, to that use for which it was afterwards employed.--Magisterium Naturæ et Artis. Brixiæ, 1684-92, fol. ii. p. 436.Return to passage

[242] Journal des Sçavans, tome iii.Return to passage

[243] Ibid. p. 131.Return to passage

[244] J. A. Sturm, Collegium Experimentale, ii. p. 146.Return to passage

[245] Philosophical Transactions.Return to passage

[246] Mémoires de l’Acad. des Sciences à Berlin, 1763, p. 97.Return to passage

[247] Experimental Inquiry into the Nature, &c. of Heat, p. 225.Return to passage

ANANAS.--PINE-APPLE

To discover the excellence of the ananas required no great skill; it recommended itself so much by its taste, smell, and 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.

Gonçalo 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 become 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 or Turkish corn had been brought to maturity, provided it could be transported with sufficient expedition[248].

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 nanas. The art of preserving the fruit with sugar was at that time known[249].

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[250].

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 additions of strangers. He has, however, given a somewhat better figure of the ananas, which he calls matzatli or pinea Indica[251].

Christopher Acosto, in his Treatise of the drugs and medicines 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[252].

Attempts were very early made, as Oviedo assures us, to 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 maturity 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 satisfaction 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 Hesperides, 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 plentiful, of our own growth, as the Portuguese oranges, though there will, in all appearance, be some deficiency in the taste[253].” As the Baron Munchausen’s garden at Schwobber was in the absence of the proprietor, as Volkamer says, under the care 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 also in the garden of Dr. Volkamer at Nuremberg, and in that of Dr. F. Kaltschmid 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[254]; 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 Cour, in the neighbourhood 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[255].

I shall here take occasion to mention a circumstance which belongs also to the history of gardening. Before the cultivation 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 common, and forcing-beds were in much greater use[256].

This plant, the history of which I have given, received from Plumier[257], who first distinguished its characters, the name of Bromelia[258], 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 physic at Upsal, disputed there in 1667 de Pleuritide, and in 1668 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 Bahuslan, in which situation he died in the year 1705. His botanical writings are Lupologia, and Chloris Gothica[259]. His son, 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 carriage are hawked about the streets of London at a halfpenny or penny per slice. They are however vastly inferior in flavour to the pines cultivated in our hot-houses, but it is to be expected, 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.]

FOOTNOTES

[248] La Historia General de las Indias. Sevilla, 1535, fol. lib. xvii. c. 13. [An earlier notice of the pine-apple had been given by Andræa Navagero in his letter to Rannusio, dated from Seville, May 12, 1526. 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 Huomini Illustri.]Return to passage

[249] Les Singularitez de la France Antarctique, autrement nommée Amerique. Par André Thevet. Anvers, 1558.Return to passage

[250] Voyage faict en la terre du Brésil, autrement dite Amerique. Par J. de Lery. Genève, 1580, 8vo, p. 188.Return to passage

[251] Rerum Med. novæ Hispaniæ Thesaurus. Rome, 1651. fol.Return to passage

[252] The accounts given by Acosta and Linschotten may be seen in Bauhini Histor. Plantarum, 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 abundance in the provinces of Quantung, Chiamsi, and Fokien, is supposed to have been brought from Peru to China.”Return to passage

[253] See Leibnitz, Nouveaux Essais sur l’Entendement Humain (Œuv. Phil.), p. 256, Amst. 1765, 4to.Return to passage

[254] Lersner, Chronik, ii. p. 824.Return to passage

[255] Miller’s Gardener’s Dictionary, i. p. 132. Lueder, Wartung der Küchengewächse. Lubeck, 1780, 8vo, p. 248.Return to passage

[256] Miller, ii. p. 824. Lueder, p. 39. That putrid bark forms an excellent manure, had been before remarked by Lauremberg, in Horticultura, p. 52.Return to passage

[257] Nova Plantarum Americanarum Genera. Parisiis 1708, 4to, p. 46.Return to passage

[258] [The plants producing the pine-apple have been separated by Prof. Lindley under the name Ananassa from the allied genus Bromelia, after which the Natural Order BROMELIACEÆ takes its name.]Return to passage

[259] Halleri Bibl. Botan. i. p. 640.Return to passage

SYMPATHETIC INK

If we give this name to any fluid, which when written with, will remain 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 their lovers[260], 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[261]; but his 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 fuliginem quæ supra focos tectis inhæret[262]. It may be easily perceived, that 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[263].

There are several metallic solutions perfectly colourless, or, at least, without any strong tint, which being used for writing, the 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 astonishment, 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 employed 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 Secretis 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. Centuriæ quatuor. 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 several editions afterwards, the author calls it a magnetic water, which acts at a distance[264]. After the occult qualities of the schoolmen were exploded, it was customary to ascribe phænomena, the causes of which were unknown, and particularly those the causes of which seemed to operate without any visible 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 preparing this magnetic water from an ingenious apothecary of Montpelier, and in return taught him some other secrets. Otto Tachen, a German chemist[265], afterwards thought of the same experiment, which he explains much better, without the assistance of magnetism or sympathy. The receipt for making these liquids, under the name of sympathetic ink, I find first given by Le Mort[266], and that name has been still retained[267].

Another remarkable kind of sympathetic ink is that prepared 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 Frenchman 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 assured him was made out of Schneeberg cobalt, with aqua regia[268]. This account induced Hellot to prepare salts and ink from various minerals impregnated with cobalt; but A. Gesner proved, long after, that this ink is produced by cobalt only, and not by marcasite[269].

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 sympathetic ink[270]. 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 proper receipt for preparing the above-mentioned red salt, and the ink produced by it[271]. If it be true that Theophrastus Paracelsus, by means of this invention, could represent a garden in winter, it must be undoubtedly older[272].

[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 number and variety. The principal may be classed in the following manner:--1, such as when dried upon paper being invisible, on moistening with another liquid become again evident: of 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[273]; 2, such as are rendered evident by being sifted over with some powder, as the milk with soot described 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 solution appear of a bright green, and thus completely change the character of the scene.]

FOOTNOTES

[260] De Arte Amandi, lib. iii. v. 629.Return to passage

[261] Ausonii Epist. xxiii. v. 21. The poet afterwards teaches other methods of secret writing, and Gellius, lib. xvii. cap. 9, mentions the like.Return to passage

[262] Colum. De Re Rust. x. 354. and xi. 3, 60.Return to passage

[263] Plin. lib. xxvi. cap. 8. p. 400.Return to passage

[264] The sixth observation of the second century is as follows: Magnetic waters which act at a distance. An astonishing effect, indeed, is produced by the contest of the following waters, which are thus made. Let quick-lime be quenched in common water, and while quenching, let some orpiment 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 if it be 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 exchange for others, from J. Brosson, a learned and ingenious apothecary of Montpelier.Return to passage

[265] Tachenii Hippocraticæ Medicinæ Clavis, p. 236. 1669.Return to passage

[266] Collectanea Chymica Leydensia, edidit Morley. Lugd. Bat. 1684, 4to, p. 97.Return to passage

[267] For an account of various kinds of secret writing see Halle, Magie oder Zauberkräfte der Natur. Berlin, 1783, 8vo, v. i. p. 138.Return to passage

[268] Hist. et Mém. de l’Acad. des Sciences à Paris, 1737, pp. 101 and 228.Return to passage

[269] Historia Cadmiæ fossilis, sive Cobalti. Berl. 1744.Return to passage

[270] This account, together with Teichmeyer’s receipt for preparing it, may be found in Commercium Litterarium Norimbergense, 1737, p. 91.Return to passage

[271] “Copiosius minera bismuthi tam ab aqua forti quam ab aqua regia dissolvitur, restante pulvere albo corroso; solutio in aqua forti roseum colorem sistit, quæ si sali in aqua soluto, secundum præscriptum D. J. W. in clave, affundatur, abstrahatur, ex residuo extrahitur sal roseum, quod pulverisari et cum spiritu vini extrahi potest: adeoque hæc autrix jam anno 1705 publice totum processum et fundamentum sic dicti atramenti sympathetici, quod a calore viridescit, evulgavit.”--Pot, Observ. Chym. collectio prima. Berolini, 1739, p. 163.Return to passage

[272] So thinks Gesner in Selecta Physico-œconomica, or Sammlung von allerhand zur Naturgeschichte gehörigen Begebenheiten. Stutgard, vii. p. 22.Return to passage

[273]

[_Inks formed of solutions _and washed 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. Perchloride of mercury, hydrochlorate of tin, black.]

DIVING-BELL

The first divers learned their art by early and adventurous experience, in trying to continue under water as long as possible 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 savage excel in it the Europeans[274], who, through refinement and luxury, have become more delicate, and less fit for such laborious exercises.

In remote ages, divers were kept in ships to assist in raising anchors[275], and goods thrown overboard in times of danger[276]; 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[277]. 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[278]. The pearls of the Greek and Roman ladies were fished up by divers at the great hazard of their lives; 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 collected 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[279], however, and others, have controverted this opinion; as people who had that opening 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 sufficient 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[280]. The divers in Holland seem to have been more expert. An observer, during the time they were under water, was obliged to breathe at least ten times[281]. 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[282]. 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 phænomena. The average time which human beings can remain in the water under these conditions, is one and a half or two minutes[283]; extraordinary cases are attested where five and even six minutes have elapsed, but these are exceedingly rare instances and far beyond the average; no instance 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. Faraday. The lungs in their natural state are charged with a large quantity of impure air; this being a portion of the carbonic 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 expelled, 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 minute. 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 themselves of this preparatory measure.]

It is certain, however, that men began very early to contrive 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 manner that the surface of the water may rise equally around the edge of the glass, it will be found that the glass does not become filled with water, even when pressed down to the greatest depth; for where there is air no other body can enter, and 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 sixteenth century, and I am of opinion that it was little known before that period. We read, however, that even in the time of Aristotle divers used a kind of kettle to enable them to continue 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[284]. The former, who was born at Hainault in 1509, had a place at court under Charles V., whom he attended on his voyage to Africa. He relates in what manner he saw at Toledo, 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 induced to make the experiment in order to prove the possibility of it. After this period the use of the diving-bell seems 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[285].

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 prisoners, contained great riches. This information excited, from time to time, the avarice of speculators, and gave rise to several 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 account has been given by a Scotsman named Sinclair[286]; but Paschius[287], Leupold[288] 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 his plan in such a plausible manner, that king Charles II. gave him a ship, and furnished him with every thing necessary for the undertaking. He set sail in the year 1683; but, being unsuccessful, returned again in great poverty, though with a firm conviction of the possibility of his scheme. He endeavoured, 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 of 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 preparations for a new voyage. Phipps soon collected the remainder; and in 1687 set sail in a ship of two hundred tons burthen to try his fortune once more, having previously engaged 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 entirely 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 pretence that Phipps, when he solicited for his Majesty’s permission, had not given accurate information respecting the business. 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 returned 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 respected, 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 went to pieces, the sea had dispersed the cargo, it is certain that nothing further was found worth the labour of searching for[289].

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[290]. Without giving more examples 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 circumstance. To the oldest edition of Vegetius on the art of war, there are added, by the editor, some figures, of which no explanation 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 certainly have delineated it rather than this useless apparatus[291]. Of the old figures of a diving machine, that which approaches nearest to the diving-bell is in a book on fortification, by Lorini; who describes a square box bound round with iron, which is furnished with windows, and has a stool affixed to it for the diver. This more ingenious contrivance appears, however, to be older than that Italian; at least he does not pretend to be the inventor of it[292].

In the year 1617, Francis Kessler gave a description of his water-armour[293], intended also for diving, but which cannot really be used for that purpose[294]. In the year 1671, Witsen taught, in a better manner than any of his predecessors, the construction and use of the diving-bell[295]; but he is much mistaken when he says that it was invented at Amsterdam. In 1679 appeared, for the first time, Borelli’s well-known work De Motu Animalium[296], in which he not only described the diving-bell, but also proposed another, the impracticability of which was shown by James Bernoulli[297]. When Sturm published his Collegium Curiosum, in 1678, he proposed some hints for the improvement of this machine, on which remarks were made in the Journal des Sçavans (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 entirely 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 corrupted 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, 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 suffered 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 consumed as much air as a man. The only inconvenience of 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 much smaller 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 of the machine. That the diver also might remain conveniently in the upper part of the bell, Triewald arranged his apparatus so that when the diver had breathed as long as possible in the upper 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[298].

[In 1776, Mr. Spalding of Edinburgh made some improvements 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 counteract 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 rock 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 suitable openings and valves, be filled either with water or with air from the lower part of the bell, so as to alter the specific 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 enabled, 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 considerable 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[299]. 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 diminished, 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[300]. 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 submarine operations, recovering property from wrecks, blasting, &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[301].

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[302].

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 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[303].]

FOOTNOTES

[274] Instances of the dexterity of the savages in diving and swimming may be seen in J. Kraft, Sitten der Wilden, Kopenhagen, 1766, 8vo, p. 39. To which may be added the account given by Maffæus 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.”--Hist. Indic. lib. ii.Return to passage

[275] Lucanus, iii. 697.Return to passage

[276] Livius, xliv. c. 10. Manilii Astronom. v. 449.Return to passage

[277] A Latin translation of these laws may be found in Marquard de Jure Mercatorum, p. 338. “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, Upsaliæ, 1654, 4to, p. 110.Return to passage

[278] Q. Curtius, iv. c. 3. The same account is given by Arrian, De Expedit. Alexandri, lib. ii. p. 138. We are told by Thucydides, in his seventh book, that the Syracusans did the same thing.Return to passage

[279] Boerhaave, Prælectiones Academicæ, edit. Halleri, Göttingæ, 1774. 8vo, v. ii. p. 472-474. Halleri Elementa Physiologiæ, iii. p. 252, and viii. 2, p. 14.Return to passage

[280] “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 durch Russland, ii. p. 199.Return to passage

[281] Acta Philosophica Societatis in Anglia, auctore Oldenburgio. Lipsiæ, 1675, 4to, p. 724.Return to passage

[282] Scheeps-bouw beschreven door Nic. Witsen. Amsterdam, 1671, fol. p. 288.Return to passage

[283] [See the account of the Ceylon pearl fishery in Percival’s Ceylon.]Return to passage

[284] “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 consumed 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.”--Taisneri Opuscula de celerrimo motu, quoted by Schott in his Technica Curiosa, lib. vi. c. 9, p. 393.Return to passage

[285] “Excellent use may be made of this vessel, which is employed sometimes in labouring under water on sunk ships, to enable the divers to continue 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 feet, 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 Phænomena Universi.Return to passage

[286] G. Sinclari Ars nova et magna gravitatis et levitatis. Rot. 1669, 4to, p. 220.Return to passage

[287] Paschii Inventa nov-antiqua. Lipsiæ, 1700, 4to, p. 650.Return to passage

[288] Theatri Statici universalis pars tertia. Lipsiæ, 1726, fol. p. 242.Return to passage

[289] This account is taken from the History of the British Empire in America, by J. Wynne. London, 1770, 2 vols. 8vo, i. p. 131, and from Campbell’s Lives of the Admirals.Return to passage

[290] Martin’s Description of the Western Islands. The second edition. London, 1716, 8vo, p. 253.--Campbell’s Political Survey of Britain. London, 1774, 2 vols. 4to, p. 604.Return to passage

[291] These figures are to be found in the following editions of Vegetius:--Lutetiæ apud C. Wechelum, 1532, fol. p. 180. Fegetius, vier Bücher von der Rytterschafft. Erfurt, Hans. Knappen, 1511, fol. These figures are inserted also in Leupold’s Theatrum Pontificale, p. 11, tab. ii. fig. 6.Return to passage

[292] Le Fortificationi di Bounaiuto Lorini. Venet. 1609, fol. p. 232.Return to passage

[293] Fran. Kessleri Secreta. Oppenheim, 1617, 8vo.Return to passage

[294] Bartholini Acta Hafn. 1676, p. i. obs. 17.Return to passage

[295] Scheeps-bouw, ut supra.Return to passage

[296] See vol. i. p. 222, edit. Hag. Com. 1743.Return to passage

[297] Acta Eruditorum, 1683, Decemb. p. 553. Jac. Bernoulli Opera.Return to passage

[298] Phil. Trans. 1736.--Martin Triewald’s Konst at lefwa under watnet. Stockholm, 1741, 4to.Return to passage

[299] Brewster’s Edinburgh Encyclopædia, Art. Diving-bell.Return to passage

[300] Reports of the late John Smeaton, F.R.S., vol. iii. p. 279.Return to passage

[301] Phil. Trans. 1717 and 1721. The art of living under water, by Halley.Return to passage

[302] Martin’s Philosophia Britannica, vol. iii. p. 180.Return to passage

[303] For further information on this important subject the reader is referred to the article Diving-bell in the Encyclopædia Britannica and its Supplement, also the Encyclopædia Metropolitana, Brewster’s Edinburgh and the Penny Cyclopædia, Halley’s papers in the Phil. Trans. for 1716 and 1721, Triewald’s in the same for 1736, Healy in the Philosophical Magazine, vol. xv., and Leopold’s Theatrum Machinarum Hydraulicarum.Return to passage

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 different 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 entirely free from colour, and transparent, or, as it was called, crystal[304]. From the different colours which glass acquired of itself, it was easy to conceive the idea of giving it the tinge of some precious stone: and this art, in ancient times, was carried 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 gemmæ vitreæ[305]. Trebellius Pollio relates in how whimsical a manner Gallienus punished a cheat who had sold to his wife a piece of glass for a jewel[306]: and Tertullian ridicules the folly of paying as dear for coloured glass as for real pearls. The glass-houses at Alexandria were celebrated among the ancients for the skill and ingenuity of the workmen employed in them. From these, the Romans, who did not acquire a knowledge of that art till a late period, procured for a long time all their glass ware. The learned author of Recherches sur les Égyptiens et les Chinois, in the end of his first volume, relates more of these glass-houses than I 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 received 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[307]. 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[308].

Seneca, in his ninetieth epistle, in which he judges too philosophically, 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[309]; 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[310]. For colouring crystal and glass, so as to resemble stones, Porta[311], Neri[312], and others have, in modern times, given directions which are, however, not much used, because the crystal is thereby liable to acquire 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 antiquities 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 transparent 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[313]. Respecting the red, 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 employed for that purpose. For common works this is sufficient; but when pure clear glass, coloured strongly throughout with a beautiful lively red, 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[314].

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 substance, which must be mixed with the best frit, is called the precipitate of Cassius, gold-purple, or mineral-purple[315].

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 I know, he never published anything respecting his art; but this service was rendered to the public by his son, who was born at Hamburg, and resided as a physician at Lubec. He was the author of a well-known treatise, now exceedingly scarce, entitled Thoughts concerning that last and most perfect work of nature, and chief of metals, gold, its wonderful properties, generation, affections, effects, and fitness for the operations of art; illustrated by experiments[316].

From this work, it will be easily understood why the author does not give himself out as the inventor of the gold-purple[317], which he is commonly supposed to be, at which Lewis is much astonished. It is seen also by it that Leibnitz calls him improperly a physician at Hamburg, having probably confounded the father and son together[318]. 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 omitted[319] in this treatise; and mention of gold-purple is to be found in the works of several old chemists[320].

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[321]. The later chemists, however, and particularly Achard, found no traces of gold, but of iron, in that precious stone[322].

Neri, who lived almost at the same time as Libavius[323], was better acquainted with the gold-purple, though his receipt is 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[324].

Glauber, who wrote his Philosophical Furnace[325] about the middle of the seventeenth century, appears to have made several experiments 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[326].

None, however, in the seventeenth century, understood better the use and preparation of gold-purple than John Kunkel, who, after being ennobled by Charles XI., king of Sweden, assumed the name of Löwenstiern. 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 inspector 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 manufacture, is still preserved at Berlin. Kunkel, however, has nowhere given a full account of this art. He has only left in his works a few scattered remarks, which Lewis has collected[327].

In the year 1684, earlier than Cassius, John Christian Orschal wrote his well-known work, Sol sine veste[328], 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 Freysingen, 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 afterwards 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[329]. In like manner, an anonymous author printed against Orschal, at Cologne, in 1684, another work, in duodecimo, entitled Apelles 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 vitrification 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 Krüger, 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 cup and cover of cut glass made in this manner is still preserved 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[330]. 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[331]. 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[332].

[Of late years the interesting art of painting on glass has attracted considerable attention; lovers of the fine arts, antiquaries, 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 by the barbarity of the last century[333]. One of the most ingenious essays that has been written on the subject, is that published by an anonymous correspondent in the Philosophical Magazine for December 1836, 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 imitated; 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[334]. 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. 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 a flux, 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[335]; mixtures of iron, copper and manganese, brown and black. Copper, which yields the green in common enamel-painting[336], 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 singular 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.

Besides the enamels and stains above-described, artists, whenever the subject will allow of it, make use of panes coloured 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 flash 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[337]. In this state the glass came into the hands of the glass-painter, and answered most of his purposes, except when the subject required 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 discontinuance of the art of glass-painting the dependent manufacture of red glass of course ceased, and all knowledge of the art became so entirely extinct, that the notion generally prevailed that the colour in question was derived from gold[338]. It is not 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 Encyclopædias[339]. 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 deoxygenating 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 requisite to throw out a brilliant red. This change of colour is very remarkable, as it is obvious that no change of oxygenation can possibly take place during the recuisson.

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[340], 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 make use 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[341].

I 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, Kunkel appears to have discovered that gold melted with flint-glass was capable 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 purpose 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 commonly 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 completely, 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[342], I suspect is that they have used too large a proportion of gold; for it is a fact, that an additional quantity of gold, beyond a certain point, far from deepening 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 proportion 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 colour on being exposed to a gentle heat, as has been already noticed with respect to glass containing copper[343]. The former 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 transparency 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 compound 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 lead, and sometimes arsenious acid. Hence the base differs but little in composition from glass. By fusing the base with 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, manganese calcined with nitre and rock crystal.]

FOOTNOTES

[304] Lib. xxxvi. c. 26.Return to passage

[305] 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, who brought it from America and California, named galinace.Return to passage

[306] Historiæ Augustæ Scriptores, in vita Gallieni, cap. 12.Return to passage

[307] Ib. in Vopisc. vita Saturnini, c. 8.Return to passage

[308] Strabo, Amst. 1707, fol. lib. xvi. p. 1099.--Some consider the glass earth here mentioned as a mineral alkali that was really found in 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 perhaps as ochre or manganese.Return to passage

[309] Sen. Op. Lipsii, p. 579.Return to passage

[310] Hist. Nat. lib. xxxvii. c. 12. A passage in Diodorus Siculus, lib. ii. c. 52, alludes, in my opinion, to this method of colouring by cementation.Return to passage

[311] Magia Naturalis. Franc. 1591, 8vo, p. 275.Return to passage

[312] Kunkel’s Ars Vitraria. Nur. 1743, 4to, pp. 98, 101.Return to passage

[313] Comment. Soc. Scient. Gotting. ii. p. 41.Return to passage

[314] Montamy von den Farben zuni Porzellan- und Email-malen. Leipsic, 1767, 8vo, p. 82. Fontanieu, p. 16.Return to passage

[315] [The extensive use of this substance in colouring glass and porcelain has rendered its best and most œconomical preparation a subject of interest both to the chemist and the manufacturer. Although the determination of its true chemical composition has presented obstacles almost insuperable, 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.Return to passage

The first point to be attained is the preparation of a solution of sesquioxide 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 exposure 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 bichloride 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 10·7 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. 10 grs. of pink salt are mixed with 1·07 gr. of tin filings 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 4·92 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.]

[316] The original title runs thus:--De extremo illo et perfectissimo naturæ opificio ac principe terrenorum sidere, auro, et admiranda ejus natura, generatione, affectionibus, effectis, atque ad operationes artis habitudine, cogitata; experimentis illustrata. Hamburgi, 1685, 8vo.Return to passage

[317] Joh. Molleri Cimbria Literata. Havniæ, 1774, fol. i. p. 88.Return to passage

[318] Miscellanea Berolinensia, i. p. 94.Return to passage

[319] The author shows only, in a brief manner, in how many ways this precipitate can be used; but he makes no mention of employing it in colouring glass.Return to passage

[320] 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.Return to passage

[321] Alchymia Andr. Libavii. Franc. 1606, fol. ii. tract. i. c. 34.Return to passage

[322] See Gotting. Gel. Anzeigen, 1778, p. 177.Return to passage

[323] It is well known that Neri’s works are translated into Kunkel’s Ars Vitraria, the edition of which, published at Nuremberg in 1743, I have in my possession. The time Neri lived is not mentioned in the Dictionary 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, Giunti, 1612.--ED.]Return to passage

[324] Neri, b. vii. c. 129, pp. 157 and 174.Return to passage

[325] Amst. 1651, vol. iv. p. 78. Lewis says that Furnus Philosophicus was printed as early as 1648.Return to passage

[326] Glauber first made known liquor of flint, and recommended it for several uses. See Ettmulleri Opera, Gen. 1736, 4 vol. fol. ii. p. 170.Return to passage

[327] Lewis, Zusammenhang der Künste. Zür. 1764, 2 vols. 8vo, i. p. 279.Return to passage

[328] 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.Return to passage

[329] A French translation of Orschal and Grummet is added to l’Art de la Verrérie de Neri, Merret et Kunkel. Paris, 1752, 4to. The editor is the Baron de Holbach.Return to passage

[330] See Peter le Vieil’s Kunst auf Glas zu malen, Nuremberg, 1779, 4to, ii. p. 25. This singular performance must, in regard to history, particularly that of the ancients, be 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.Return to passage

[331] In what the art of Abraham Helmback, a Nuremberg artist, consisted, I do not know. Doppelmayer, 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.Return to passage

[332] Ferber’s Briefe aus Welschland. Prague, 1773, 8vo, p. 114.Return to passage

[333] The devastations to which the productions of this beautiful art have been 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 whichReturn to passage

“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 the 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.

[334] 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, derived from iron.Return to passage

[335] 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 Zaffres, under which the oxide of cobalt is still known in commerce.Return to passage

[336] Oxide of chromium is now substituted for the copper.Return to passage

[337] That such was the method in use, an attentive examination of old specimens 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.Return to passage

[338] 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 repair 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!Return to passage

[339] [M. Langlois names the following writers: “Neri en 1612, Handicquer de Blancourt en 1667, Kunkel en 1679, Le Vieil en 1774, et plusieurs autres écrivains à diverses époques, decrivaient ces procédés.” (p. 192.) He fixes the restoration of the art in France at about the year 1800, when Brongniart, who had the direction of the Sèvres porcelain manufacture, worked with Méraud at the preparation of vitrifiable colours, p. 194. Among modern artists he particularly mentions Dihl, Schilt, Mortelègue, Robert, Leclair, Collins, and Willement.]Return to passage

[340] Bulletin de la Société d’Encouragement pour l’Industrie Nationale, 1826.Return to passage

[341] Though it is difficult to produce the copper-glass uniformly coloured, 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.Return to passage

[342] “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 infinite pains, and tried a multitude of experiments with that view.” Commerce of Arts, p. 177.Return to passage

[343] [At the recent meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science, held at Cambridge (June 1845), M. Splittgerber exhibited specimens 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 a spirit-lamp, they became a deep-red. If again the same reddened glass is exposed to the heat of an oxygen blowpipe, it loses nearly all its colours, a slight pinkiness only remaining.]Return to passage

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[344]. The terra sigillaris was used by the Egyptians, and appears to have been the first substance employed for sealing[345]. 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 impression with their seal; and such cattle only could be offered up as victims[346].

Lucian speaks of a fortune-teller who ordered those who came to consult him to write down on a bit of paper the questions they wished to ask, to fold it up, and to seal it with clay, or any other substance of the like kind[347]. 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 believed that those who received written orders from the emperor and venerated the seal, worshiped on that account the sealing-earth, the paper, or the lead[348].

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[349]. The same orator, in his defence of Flaccus, 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[350]. 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 Erythræa where she resided; that she therefore quitted the place, and retired to Cumæ, where she became old and decrepid; but that having received a letter sealed with Erythræan earth (creta), when she saw the seal she instantly expired[351].

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 impression and of retaining it after it is hardened by drying. That the Romans, under the indefinite name of creta, often 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[352]. Virgil calls it tough[353]; and the ancient writers on agriculture give the same name to marl which was employed to manure land[354]. Notwithstanding all these authorities, I do not clearly comprehend how letters could be sealed with potters’ clay, as 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 artificial cement? These questions might be answered by those who have had an opportunity 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[355] 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, would entirely disappear[356]. It seems to me remarkable that neither Theophrastus nor Pliny says anything of the Asiatic creta, or speaks at all of sealing-earth; though they 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 century, 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 directions 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 of speculation for our chemists; but I can give them no hopes that such a thing can ever be produced[357]. The emperor Charles V. in the year 1524 granted to Dr. Stockamar of Nuremberg, the privilege of using blue wax in seals;--a favour like that conferred in 1704 on the manufactories in the principality 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[358].

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[359]. 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 impression of which is the following inscription, Secretum civium in Ulma, 1474; but it is only a new copy of a very old impression. Kings, however, before the invention of sealing-wax, were accustomed to seal their letters with this paste[360].

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[361]: 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 tabella judicum obliniebatur[362],” will admit of a different explanation. If maltha has been in reality used for seals, that mixture may be considered as the first or oldest sealing-wax, as what of it is still preserved has been composed of resinous substances.

Some writers assert[363], upon the authority of Lebeuf[364], that sealing-wax was invented about the year 1640 by a Frenchman named Rousseau; but that author refers his readers to Papillon[365], who refers again to Pomet[366], 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 and 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 XIII., 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 XIII. 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[367].

That sealing-wax was either very little 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[368]. The former says, that to open letters in such a manner as not to be perceived, the wax seal must be heated a little, and must be then carefully separated from the letter by a horse’s hair; and when the letter has been read and folded up, the seal must be again dexterously fastened to it. This manœuvre, as the writers on diplomatics remark, has been often made use of to forge public acts; and they have therefore given directions how to discover such frauds[369]. The above method of opening letters, however, 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[370].

Whether sealing-wax was used earlier in the East Indies than in Europe, as the French think, I cannot with certainty determine. Tavernier[371], however, seems to say that the lac produced in the kingdom of Assam is employed there not only 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 two 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 somewhat 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 France, or made the first good wax, will appear in the course of what follows.

The oldest known 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[372]. 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 council 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[373]. 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 dated September the 2nd, and the other September the 7th. Another letter, written by the same person 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, especially as sealing-wax was used at Breslau so early as 1561; but this matter can be best determined perhaps by the Spanish literati. It is much to be lamented that John Fenn, in his Original letters of the last half of the fifteenth century[374], 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 understood, undoubtedly, common wax.

Among the records of the landgraviate of Cassel, M. Ledderhose found two letters of Count Louis of Nassau to the landgrave William IV., 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[375]. 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 remark, 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, who 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[376].

The oldest mention of sealing-wax which I have hitherto observed in printed books is in the work of Garcia ab Orto[377], 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[378]. 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 procure, 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. 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 new articles have been called Turkish; such as Turkish wheat, Turkish paper, &c.

Respecting the antiquity of wafers, M. Spiess has made an observation[379] which may lead to further researches, that the oldest seal with a red wafer he has ever yet found, is on a letter written by D. Krapf at Spires in the year 1624, to the government at Bayreuth. M. Spiess has found also that some years after, Forstenhäusser, the Brandenburg factor at Nuremberg, 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 continued; and among the Plassenburg archives there is a rescript 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 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.

FOOTNOTES

[344] Gattereri Elem. Artis Diplom. 1765, 4to, p. 285.Return to passage

[345] 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.Return to passage

[346] Herodot. lib. ii. c. 38.Return to passage

[347] Lucian. in Pseudomant.Return to passage

[348] Act. iv. ap. Bin. tom. iii. Concil. part. i. p. 356. Whether the γῆ σημαντρὶς, however, of Herodotus and the πηλὸς of Lucian and of the Byzantine be the same kind of earth, can be determined with as little certainty as whether the creta, called by some Roman authors a sealing-earth, be different from both.Return to passage

[349] 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 πηλὸν some read κηρόν: 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 κηρῷ ἣ πηλῷ. Reiske himself, who proposes that amendment, says that πηλὸν may be retained. Stephanus, however, does not give that meaning to this word in his Lexicon. Pollux and Hesychius tell us, that the Athenians called sealing-earth also ῥύπον.Return to passage

[350] Orat. pro Flacco, c. 16.Return to passage

[351] Serv. ad lib. vi. Æneid. p. 1037.Return to passage

[352] Lib. xii. c. 43.Return to passage

[353] Georg. i. v. 179.Return to passage

[354] Creta fossica, qua stercorantur agri.--Varro, i. 7. 8. It appears also that the πηλὸς 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 ἀῤῥαγεῖ πηλῷ ἀργιλλώδει. See Geopon. x. c. 75. 12, and ix. c. 10. 4.Return to passage

[355] I piombi antichi. Roma 1740, 4to, p. 16.Return to passage

[356] Heineccius and others think that the amphoræ vitreæ diligenter gypsatæ, in Petronius, were sealed; but it is much more probable that they were only daubed over or closed with gypsum, for the same reason that we pitch our casks.Return to passage

[357] [Blue wax may now be seen in every wax-chandler’s shop; it is coloured blue by means of indigo.]Return to passage

[358] Heineccii Syntagma de Vet. Sigillis, 1719, p. 55.Return to passage

[359] Plin. lib. xxii. c. 25.Return to passage

[360] Trotz, Not. in Prim. Scribendi Origine, p. 73, 74.Return to passage

[361] P. Festi de Verb. Sig. lib. xx. Hesychius calls this cement μεμαλάγμενον κηρόν.--Plin. lib. xxxvi. c. 24.Return to passage

[362] Lib. viii. c. 4.Return to passage

[363] Nouveau Traité de Diplomatique. Paris, 1759, 4to, iv. p. 33.Return to passage

[364] Mémoires conc. l’Histoire d’Auxerre. Par. 1743, ii. p. 517.Return to passage

[365] Bibliothèque des Auteurs de Bourgogne, 2 vols. fol. ii. p. 217.Return to passage

[366] Histoire Générale des Drogues. Paris, 1735.Return to passage

[367] This Rousseau appears also in the History of Cochineal, as he sent to Pomet a paper on that subject, which was contradicted by the well-known Plumier in the Journal des Sçavans 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 of age.Return to passage

[368] Von Murr, in his learned Beschreibung der Merkwürdigkeiten in Nürnberg, Nurnb. 1778, 8vo, p. 702, says that Spanish wax was not invented, or at least not known, before the year 1559. This appears also from a manuscript of the same year, which contains various receipts in the arts and medicine. There are some in it for making the common white sealing-wax green or red.Return to passage

[369] See Chronicon Godvicense, p. 102.Return to passage

[370] 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 employed even at present.Return to passage

[371] Tavernier, in his Travels, says that in Surat lac is melted and formed into sticks like sealing-wax. Compare with this Dapper’s Asia, Nuremberg, 1681, fol. p. 237.Return to passage

[372] Bruchstücke betreffend die Pflichten eines Staatsdieners; aus den Handlungen des Raths Dreitz, nebst Bemerkungen vom ältesten Gebrauche des Spanischen Siegelwachses, Frankf. 1785, 4to, p. 86; where the use of these antiquarian researches is illustrated by examples worthy of notice.Return to passage

[373] Historische Untersuchungen gesammelt von J. G. Meusel, i. 3, p. 240.Return to passage

[374] Original Letters of the Paston Family, temp. Henry VI. i. p. 21, and p. 87 and 92.Return to passage

[375] Meusel’s Geschichtforscher. Halle, 8vo, vi. p. 270.Return to passage

[376] Ibid. iv. p. 251.Return to passage

[377] Aromatum et Simplicium aliquot Historia, Garcia ab Horto auctore. Antverpiæ 1574, 8vo, p. 33.Return to passage

[378] Neu Titularbuch,--sambt etlichen hinzugethanen Gehaimnüssen und Künsten, das Lesen und die Schreiberey betreffendt. 4to, 1579, p. 112.Return to passage

[379] Archivische Nebenarbeiten und Nachrichten. Halle, 1785, 4to, ii. p. 3.Return to passage

CORN-MILLS

If under this name we comprehend all those machines, however 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 mortar; 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[380]. It appears 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[381], 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 trusatilis, versatilis, manuaria[382], and was very little different from those used at present by apothecaries, painters, potters and other artists, for grinding coarse bodies, such as colours, glass, chalk, &c. We have reason to suppose that in every family there was a mill of this kind. Moses forbade them to be taken in pawn; for that, says he, is the 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[383]. Grinding was at first the employment of the women, and particularly of the female slaves, as it is at present among uncivilised nations, and must therefore have required little strength[384]; but afterwards the mills were driven by bondsmen, around whose necks was placed a circular 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, blindfolded[385]. The first cattle-mills, molæ jumentariæ, had perhaps only a heavy pestle like the hand-mills[386]; 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[387] 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 meta, or turbo; and the lower one catillus. Meta signified also a cone with a blunt apex[388]; and it has on that account been conjectured that corn was at first rubbed into meal by rolling over it a conical stone 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 grinding; 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[389] found 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[390] has described a red jasper, on which is engraved the naked figure of a man, who in his 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 perpendicular 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 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 considered as a handle, or that part of the mill which some called molile. 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[391], in the Philosophical Transactions. One of the stones was twenty inches in breadth; thicker in the middle than at the edges, and consequently 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[392]. Neither shall I inquire to what Ceres the Grecians ascribed the invention of mills[393]; who Milantes was, to whom that honour has been given by Stephanus Byzantinus[394]; or how those mills were constructed which were first built by Myletes the son of Lelex, king of Laconia[395]. 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 Mithridates, Julius Cæsar, and Cicero. Because Strabo[396] 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 circumstance, than that water-mills were at that period known, at least in Asia. We are told by Pomponius Sabinus, in his remarks upon a poem 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[397]. The most certain proof that Rome had water-mills in the time of Augustus is the description which has been given of them by Vitruvius (lib. x. 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 Sueton. 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[398], as Salmasius with great probability asserts, lived in the time of Cicero. Palladius[399] also speaks with equal clearness of water-mills, which he advises to be built on possessions that have running water, in order to grind corn without 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 Lucretius[400]:

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[401], cannot be considered as mills. These, as well as the haustra of Lucretius, were machines for raising water, like those mentioned in the before-quoted passage of Vitruvius[402]. It is however evident that there were water-mills at Rome at this period; and it affords matter of surprise that we 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[403]. Nay, more than three hundred years after Augustus, cattle-mills were so common at Rome, that their number amounted to three hundred[404]. 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, particularizing the bequest of a baker, mentions asina molendaria and mola, a mill-ass and a mill[405]. In the year 319 Constantine ordered that all the slaves condemned to the mills should be brought from Sardinia to Rome[406]. Such orders respecting mill-slaves occur also under Valentinian[407]. When by the introduction of Christianity, however, the morals of men became improved, 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 condemning 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 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[408]. It is worthy of remark, that in the whole 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 various 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[409]; 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 maintained, 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 current. This experiment was attended with complete success; and as many mills of this kind as were necessary were constructed. To destroy these, the besiegers threw into the stream logs of wood and dead bodies, which floated down the river 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[410]. This seems to be the invention of floating-mills, 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 inconveniences, 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 this improvement the use of water-mills was never 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[411] provided security for these mills, which they call molina or farinaria; and define a punishment for those who destroy the sluices, or steal the mill-irons (ferramentum). 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[412], in the 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[413]. Brito, who in the beginning of the thirteenth century wrote in verse an account of the actions of Philip Augustus king of France[414], relates how by the piercing of a dam the mills near Gournay (castrum Gornacum or Cornacum) 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[415]. In deeds of the twelfth and thirteenth century, water-mills are often called aquimollia, aquimoli, aquismoli, aquimolæ[416]. Petrus Damiani, one of the fathers of the eleventh century, says, “Sicut aquimolum nequaquam potest sine gurgitis inundantia frumenta permolere, ita, &c.[417]”

At Venice and other places, there were mills which righted themselves by the ebbing and flowing of the tide, and which every six hours changed the position of the wheels. Zanetti[418] 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 juxta 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-mill. 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 colleagues. 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 unseasonable time. More wonders of this kind are to be found at later periods in the Popish mythology. Such small mills remained 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 without 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-deserved food. Sulpicius Severus[419] 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 malefactors in France were condemned to the mill, as is proved by the history of Septimina the nurse of Childebert[420].

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 changeable wind for the same purpose. Though the strength and direction of the wind cannot be any way altered, it has however 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[421]. Vitruvius[422], where he speaks of all moving forces, mentions also the wind; but he does not say a word of wind-mills; nor are they noticed either by Seneca[423] or Chrysostom[424], who have both spoken of the advantages of the wind. I consider as false also, the account given by an old Bohemian annalist[425], 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 particularly in France and England[426], by those who returned from these expeditions; but it does not thence follow that they were invented in the East[427]. The crusaders perhaps saw such mills in the course of their travels through Europe; very probably in Germany, which 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[428]. 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[429]. In the 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[430]. In the year 1332, one Bartolomeo 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[431]. 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 grinding by it[432]. A wind-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 invented. 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[433]. 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[434], 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[435]. 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 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[436]. This method gave rise perhaps to the invention of moveable mills.

It is highly probable, that in the early ages men were satisfied 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 pollinaria, 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[437]. 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 to be turned and shaken by the machinery, was first made known in the beginning of the sixteenth century, as we are expressly told in several ancient chronicles[438].

This invention gave rise to an employment which at present maintains a great many people; I mean that of preparing bolting-cloths, or those kinds of cloth through which meal is sifted in mills. As this cloth is universally used, a considerable 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 seventeenth century, when manufactories of this cloth were established, 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’ samplers, 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 attended 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 imported 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 English have an advantage we have not yet been able to attain. Their bolting-cloth is stiffer 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 established 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 relations, and was enabled to carry it on by the assistance of a schoolmaster named Strietzel. Since that period this business has been continued there, and become common[439]. The cloth which is sent for sale, not only everywhere around the country, but also to Bohemia, Moravia, and Silesia, is wove in pieces. Each piece contains from sixty-four to sixty-five Leipsic ells: the narrowest is ten, and the widest fourteen inches in breadth. A piece 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 introduced 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 occasion for[440]. 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 économique, 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 however 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 sieves. This method, which in reality has nothing in it either very ingenious or uncommon, was known to the ancient Romans, as we may conclude from the account of Pliny, who names the different kinds of meal, such as similago, simila, flos, pollen, cibarium, &c.; for these words are not synonymous, but express clearly all the various kinds of meal or flour which were procured from the same corn by repeated grinding and sifting. In general, the Romans had advanced very far in this art[441]; and they knew how to prepare from corn more kinds of meal, and from meal more kinds of bread, than 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[442]. In latter times the arts of grinding and of baking have declined very much in Italy; and sensible Italians readily acknowledge that their bread is much inferior to that of most parts of Europe, and that in this respect the Germans are their masters[443]. 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 Italians 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 company, 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 avarice 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[444].

The mouture économique has been long known in Germany. Sebastian Muller, in the beginning of the seventeenth century, gave so clear a description of it, that the French even acknowledge it[445]. This author says that one Butré, 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 nothing to console him but that, according to his opinion, the mill-stones at Carlsruhe were too small, and that the bolting-sieves were not made in the same manner as those at Paris[446].

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[447]; and in 1658 this threat was renewed, and the cause added, that such a practice was prejudicial to the health[448]. Such prohibitions however, made by the police without sufficient grounds, could not prevent intelligent persons 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 probability 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 Versailles 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 économique, purchased the bran from these ecclesiastics, and found that it yielded him as good flour as they procured from the whole wheat. The miller at length discovered to them the secret, and gave them afterwards fourteen 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 Malisset proposed to the lieutenant-général 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 direction of magistrates, was printed; the investigation of this art was now taken up by men of learning, who gave it a suitable name; and they explained it, made calculations on it, and recommended it so much, that the mouture économique engaged the attention of all the magistrates throughout France[449]. Government 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 worth that trouble. Before that period, a Paris sétier 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. In the time of St. Louis, from four to five sétiers were reckoned necessary for the yearly maintenance of a man, and these even were scarcely sufficient; as many were allowed to the patients in the hospital aux Quinze-Vingts; and such was the calculation made by Budée in the sixteenth century[450]. When the miller’s art was everywhere improved, these four sétiers 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 inventions. 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-mills 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 upwards. 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 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 Pellikaan, 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 considerable gain to their proprietors[451].

As long as the natural freedom of man continued unrestrained 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 freedom was not abridged even by the Roman law[452]. But as it is the duty of rulers to consult what is best for the whole society under their protection, princes took care that no one should make such use of common streams as might impede or destroy their public utility[453]. 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 to be numerous, restrained, from the same principle, the liberty of erecting them, and allowed them only, when after a proper investigation they were declared to be not detrimental. Water-mills, therefore, were included among what were called regalia; and among these they are expressly reckoned by the emperor Frederic I.[454] On small streams however which were not navigable, the proprietors of the banks might build mills everywhere along them[455].

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[456]. In the end of the fourteenth century, the monks of the celebrated but long since destroyed monastery of Augustines, at Windsheim, in the province of Overyssel, were desirous of erecting a wind-mill not far from Zwoll; but a neighbouring lord endeavoured 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[457]. 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[458].

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 certain value in kind. The oldest account of such ban-mills, molendina bannaria, occurs in the eleventh century. Fulbert, bishop of Chartres, and chancellor of France, in a letter to Richard duke of Normandy, complains that attempts began 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[459]. In the chronicle of the Benedictine monk Hugo de Flavigny, who lived in the eleventh and twelfth century, we find mention of molendina quatuor cum banno ipsius villæ[460]. More examples of this servitude, secta ad molendinum, 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[461] gives an instance 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 times expensive, and undertaken 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.

FOOTNOTES

[380] Hesiod, Opera et Dies, 421.--It appears that both the mortar 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 ὕπερος, pila; the pestle ὕπερος, or ὕπερον, pistillus or pistillum; to pound, μάσσειν, pinsere, which word, as well as pinsor, was afterwards retained when mills came to be used.--Plin. lib. xviii. c. 3.Return to passage

[381] Plin. xviii. 10. ii. p. 111. This passage Gesner has endeavoured to explain, in his Index to the Scriptores Rei Rusticæ, p. 59, to which he gives the too-dignified title of Lexicon Rusticum.Return to passage

[382] Gellius, iii. c. 3.Return to passage

[383] Deuteronomy, ch. xxiv. v. 6.Return to passage

[384] When Moses threatened Pharaoh with the destruction of the first-born in the land of Egypt, he said, “All the first-born shall die, from the first-born of Pharaoh that sitteth on the throne, even unto the first-born of the maid-servant that is behind the mill.”--Genesis, ch. xi. v. 5. See Homeri Odyss. vii. 103, and xx. 105.Return to passage

[385] Apuleii Metamorph. lib. ix.Return to passage

[386] The oldest cattle-mills have, in my opinion, resembled the oil-mills represented in plate 25th of Sonnerat, Voyages aux Indes, &c., i. Zurich, 1783, 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 direction of one man, can grind more than a thousand.Return to passage

[387] Voyage du Lévant, 4to, p. 155.Return to passage

[388] A haycock was called meta fœni. Colum. ii. 19. Plin. xxvii. 28.Return to passage

[389] Niebuhr’s Déscription de l’Arabie. A figure of both stones is represented in the first plate, fig. H.Return to passage

[390] Memorie di varia erudizione della Societa Colombaria Fiorentina. Livorno, 1752, 4to, vol. ii. p. 207.Return to passage

[391] No. 282, p. 1285, and in the abridgement by Jones, 1700-20, vol. ii. p. 38.Return to passage

[392] Joh. Heringii Tractatus de Molendinis eorumque jure. Franc. 1663, 4to. A very confused book, which requires a very patient reader. F. L. Gœtzius De Pistrinis Veterum. Cygneæ 1730, 8vo. Extracted chiefly from the former, equally confused, and filled with quotations from authors who afford very little insight into the history or knowledge of mills. Traité de la Police, par De la Mare.--G. H. Ayrer, De Molarum Initiis; et Prolusio de Molarum Progressibus, Gottin. 1772.--C. L. Hoheiselii Diss. de Molis Manualibus Veterum. Gedani 1728.--Pancirollus, edit. Salmuth. ii. p. 294.--Histoire de la vie privée des Francois, par Le Grand d’Aussy. Paris, 1782, i. p. 33.--See Fabricii Bibliographia Antiq. Hamburgi, 1760, p. 1002.Return to passage

[393] Plin. lib. vii. c. 56.Return to passage

[394] Stephan. De Urbibus, v. μυλαντία.Return to passage

[395] Pausanias, iii. c. 20. edit. Kuhnii, p. 260.Return to passage

[396] Strabo, lib. xii. edit. Almelov. p. 834. In the Greek stands the words ὑδραλέτης, perhaps an ἅπαξ λεγόμενον, which the scholiasts have explained by a water-mill. In many of the later translations of Strabo that word is wanting.Return to passage

[397] This Pomponius Sabinus, author of a Commentary on the works of Virgil, is called also Julius Pomponius Lætus, 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 Infimæ 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. Basiliæ (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 ventum et ad equos. Paulo ante Augustum molæ aquis actæ Romæ in Tiberi primum factæ, tempore Græcorum, cum fornices diruissent.”Return to passage

[398] This Greek epigram was first made known by Salmasius, in his Annotations on the Life of Heliogabalus by Lanipridius. See Historiæ Augustæ Scriptores; ed. C. Salmasius, Par. 1620, fol. p. 193. It is to be found also in Mémoires de l’Académie des Inscriptions, ii. p. 315, and in Analecta Veterum Græcorum, edit. Brunk. ii. p. 119, epig. 39.Return to passage

[399] Pallad. in Script. De Re Rustica, lib. i. 42, edit. Gesn.Return to passage

[400] Lucret. v. 517. Compare Salmas. ad Solin. p. 416.Return to passage

[401] Hist. Aug. Scr. Lamprid. in Vita Heliogabali.Return to passage

[402] Among the doubtful passages is one of Pliny, lib. xviii. c. 10. “Major pars Italiæ ruido utitur pilo; rotis etiam, quas aqua verset obiter, et molat.” So reads Hardouin: but the French translator of Pliny divides these words otherwise, and reads thus: “Major pars Italiæ ruido utitur pilo, rotis etiam quas aqua verset; obiter et molit;” which he translates as follows; “Dans la majeure partie de l’Italie, on se sert d’un pilon raboteux, ou de roues que l’eau fait tourner; et par fois aussi on y emploie la meule.” This explanation is in my opinion very proper; Pliny is not speaking here of the labour of grinding corn, but that of freeing it from the husks, 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 Sçavans, 1779, Septem.), who thinks that Pliny here certainly speaks of a water-mill.Return to passage

[403] Sueton. Vita Calig. cap. 39.Return to passage

[404] Petr. Victor. De Regionibus urbis Romæ.Return to passage

[405] Digestorum lib. xxxiii. tit. 7, 18, Cum de lanienis.Return to passage

[406] Cod. Theodos. lib. ix. tit. 40, 3, or l. 3, Quicunque. C. Th. de pœnis.Return to passage

[407] Cod. Theodos. lib. xiv. tit. 3, 7, or l. 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, Quadrupedi di Sardegna. Sessati, 1778, 8vo.Return to passage

[408] 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.Return to passage

[409] Procopius, Gothicorum lib. i. c. 9. Fabretti Diss. de aquis et aquæductibus vet. Romæ, p. 176. Grævii Thesaur. Antiq. Rom. iv. p. 1677.Return to passage

[410] 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, he 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.Return to passage

[411] “Si quis ingenuus annonam in molino furaverit.... Si quis sclusam de farinario alieno ruperit.... Si quis ferramentum de molino alieno furaverit....”--Leges Francorum Salicæ, edit. Eccardi, Francof. et Lipsiæ 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 schluten: 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, lib. viii. tit. 4, 30, may serve further to illustrate this subject: “De confringentibus molina et conclusiones aquarum. Si quis molina violenter effregerit, quod fregit intra triginta dies reparare cogatur.--Eadem et de stagnis, quæ sunt circa molina conclusiones aquarum, præcipimus custodire.” The sclusæ are here called conclusiones aquarum, to which belong also the mounds or dykes. See Corpus Juris Germanici Antiqui, ed. Georgisch. Halæ 1738, 4to, p. 2097. Gregory of Tours calls them exclusas. But what is ferramentum? The iron-work of our mills cannot be so easily stolen as to render it necessary to secure them by particular laws.Return to passage

[412] Auson. Mosella, v. 362. Fortunati Carmina, Moguntiæ 1617, 4to, p. 83.Return to passage

[413] Gregorii Turonensis Opera, Paris, 1699, fol. Hist. lib. iii. 19, p. 126. Ibid. Vita Patrum, 18, p. 1242.Return to passage

[414] Gul. Britonis Philippidos libri xii. lib. vi. v. 220.Return to passage

[415] Chronicon Hierosolymitanum, edit. a Reineccio. Helms. 1584, 4to, lib. i. c. 10.Return to passage

[416] See Carpentieri Gloss. Nov. ad Scriptores medii, ævi, (Supp. ad Ducang.) Paris, 1766, fol. vol. i. p. 266. In a chronicle written in the year 1290, a floating-mill is called molendinum navale, also navencum; and in another chronicle of 1301, molendinum pendens.Return to passage

[417] Damiani Opera, ed. Cajetani. Paris, 1743, fol. i. p. 105, lib. vi. epist. 23.Return to passage

[418] Dell’ Origine di alcune Arti Principali Appresso i Veneziani. Ven. 1758, 4to, p. 71.Return to passage

[419] Dialog. i. 2.Return to passage

[420] Histor. Francorum, lib. ix. 38, p. 462.Return to passage

[421] See Pomponius Sabinus, ut supra.Return to passage

[422] Lib. ix. c. 9; x. c. 1, 13.Return to passage

[423] Natur. Quæst. lib. v. c. 18.Return to passage

[424] Chrysost. in Psalm. cxxxiv. p. 362.Return to passage

[425] “At the same period (718) one named Halek the son of Uladi 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 all the Bohemian mills were wind-mills, erected on mountains.”--Wenceslai Hagecii Chronic. Bohem. translated into German by John Sandel. Nuremberg, 1697, fol. p. 13.Return to passage

[426] See De la Mare, Traité de la Police, &c. ut supra.--Déscription du Duché de Bourgogne. Dijon, 1775, 8vo, i. p. 163.--Dictionnaire des Origines, 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.Return to passage

[427] There are no wind-mills at Ispahan nor in any part of Persia. The mills are all 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, Part iii. Copenh. 1754, 8vo. 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.--Niebuhr, p. 217.Return to passage

[428] Mabillon, Annales Ord. Benedicti. Paris, 1713, fol. p. 474.Return to passage

[429] 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. 107, we read of molendinum ventorium. See Dugdale’s Monasticon, ed. nov. vol. v. p. 431-442.Return to passage

[430] Decretal Greg. lib. iii. tit. 30. c. 23.Return to passage

[431] Zanetti, ut supra.Return to passage

[432] 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.”Return to passage

[433] Descriptions and figures of both kinds may be found in Leupold’s Theatrum Machinarum Generale. Leipzig, 1724, fol. p. 101, tab. 41, 42, 43.Return to passage

[434] De Rerum Varietate, lib. i. cap. 10.Return to passage

[435] This account I found in De Koophandel van Amsterdam, door Le 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 sixteenth 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 inventions, and died in 1650, in the 75th year of his age.Return to passage

[436] See Beschryving der Stadt Delft, Delft, 1729, folio 625.Return to passage

[437] Plin. lib. xviii. cap. 11.Return to passage

[438] At Midsummer 1502, machinery for bolting in mills was first introduced and employed at Zwikau; Nicholas Boller, 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 1641, was before that period used for baking. Chronica Cygnea, auct. Tob. Schmidten. Zwikau, 1656, v. vol. 4to, ii. p. 219. 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 might be better supplied with meal, the bolting machinery was removed, and this was attended with such good consequences that each mill could grind as much as before. In Walser’s Appenzeller Chronik. 8vo, p. 471, we are told that about that time (1533), a freeman of Memmingen taught the people of Appenzel to make the beautiful white bolted flour so much and so far celebrated.Return to passage

[439] Transactions of the Economical Society at Leipsic, 1772. Dresden, 8vo, p. 79.Return to passage

[440] According to the general rescript of 1750, which has been often renewed. The company obtained this exclusive right as early as the year 1668.Return to passage

[441] 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 remarked 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, “Quæ sicca moluntur plus farinæ reddunt; quæ salsa aqua sparsa, candidiorem medullam, verum plus retinent 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 separated 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 moderate 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.Return to passage

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. “De ipsa ratione pisendi Magonis proponetur sententia: triticum 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 probable from the words immediately preceding, which I have above endeavoured to explain, and from the word evalli. I do not think that it ought to be translated to winnow, as Salmasius says, in Exercitat. Plinianæ, p. 907; but agree with Gesner in Thesaur. 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 mentioned by Krünitz in his Encyclopédie, vol. ix. p. 805.

[442] Further information on this subject may be found collected in Krünitz, Encyclopédie, vol. iii. p. 334. According to experiments mentioned by Köhler, 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.Return to passage

[443] See the treatise of Rosa, professor of medicine at Pavia, on the baking of bread in Lombardy, in Atti dell’ Academia delle Scienze di Siena, tom. iv. p. 321.Return to passage

[444] “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, 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 Illyria, 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 Rerum Scriptores, Goldasti. Franc. 1605, 4to, and Ulm, 1727, fol.Return to passage

[445] Bericht von Brodtbacken, etc., durch Sab. Mullein, Leipsig, 1616, 4to. Muller’s work is republished in Arcana et Curiositates Œconomicæ. By David Maiern, 1706, 8vo.Return to passage

[446] Schreber, in his Observations on Malouin, shows that the mill-stones in France are too large.Return to passage

[447] Traité de la Police, par De la Mare, ii. p. 259.Return to passage

[448] “Défenses sont aussi faites à tous boulangers, tant maîtres que forains, de faire remoudre aucun son, pour par après en faire et fabriquer du pain, attendu qu’il seroit indigne d’entrer au corps humain, sur peine de quarante-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 demanded for all the meal brought to Paris, many sent thither not meal, but 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 économique much sooner to perfection.Return to passage

[449] Histoire de la Vie Privée des François, par M. Le Grand d’Aussy. Paris, 1782, 3 vols. 8vo, i. p. 50.Return to passage

[450] Budæus De Asse. Basiliæ, 1556, fol. p. 214.Return to passage

[451] De Koophandel van Amsterdam, door Le Long. ii. p. 538.Return to passage

[452] Digestorum lib. xxxix. tit. 2. 24.Return to passage

[453] Ibid. lib. xliii. tit. 12. 1.Return to passage

[454] See a diploma of Frederic I., dated 1159, in Tolneri Codex Diplomaticus Palatinus, Franc. 1700, fol. p. 54. In Reliquiæ 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.Return to passage

[455] Digestor. lib. xliii. tit. 11, 12.Return to passage

[456] Einleitung in die Lehre von den Regalien. Rostock, 1757, 4to, p. 494.Return to passage

[457] Chronicon Canon, reg. ord. August. capituli Windesemensis; auctore Joh. Buschio. Antv. 1621, 8vo, p. 73.Return to passage

[458] Schrevelii Harlemum. Lugd. Bat. 1647, 4to, p. 181.Return to passage

[459] This letter of Fulbert may be found in Maxima Bibliotheca Veterum Patrum. Lugduni 1677, fol. tom. xviii. p. 9.Return to passage

[460] In Labbei Biblioth. Manuscr. i. p. 132.Return to passage

[461] Traités de la Police, ii. p. 151.Return to passage

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 Theophrastus, Dioscorides, and Vitruvius[462]. At that period, however, every natural green copper salt was comprehended under the name of ærugo. 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 verdigris 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.

The artificial ærugo of the ancients, however, was our verdigris, 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[463]. Sometimes 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 discovered; 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 employed 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[464], the accounts of which in ancient 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[465]. 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 Pliny 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 manufactured at Montpelier in France, and by processes more advantageous than those known to the ancients[466]. 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 few 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 demand 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 seems to have taken place, for in 1759 the quantity manufactured 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 deniers: 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 least three-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 necessity[467].

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[468]. For a considerable period this article was manufactured solely by the Dutch, and affords an additional example 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 various parts of Europe.

The German name of verdigris (Spangrün) 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 ærugo, and viride Hispanicum, translated Spangrün, Spongrün, or Spansgrün, in many of the earliest dictionaries[469], such as that printed in 1480[470]. For this meaning, however, I know no other proof than the above etymology, which carries 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.

FOOTNOTES

[462] Dioscorid. lib. v. cap. 91, 92. Theophrastus De Lapidibus, edit. Heinsii, p. 399. Plin. lib. xxxiv. cap. 11, 12. Oribasius, lib. xiii. Stephani Medicæ Artis Principes, p. 453. Vitruv. lib. vii. cap. 12.Return to passage

[463] Plinius: vinacea. Dioscorides: στέμφυλα. Theophrastus: τρύξ. The last word has various meanings: sometimes it signifies squeezed grapes; sometimes wine lees, &c., of which Niclas gives examples in his Observations on Geop. lib. vi. c. 13, p. 457; but it can never be translated by amurca, though that word is used by Furlanus, the translator of Theophrastus. The old glossary says, Ἀμοργὴ, ἐστὶν δὲ τρὺξ ἐλαιου. Oil, however, has nothing to do with verdigris.Return to passage

[464] Ἰὸς σκώληξ, ærugo scolacea, or vermicularis.Return to passage

[465] Should this explanation be just, we ought for æruca, the name given by Vitruvius to verdigris, to read eruca: though the conjecture of Marcellus Vergilius (Dioscorides, interprete Mar. Vergilio. Coloniæ, 1529, fol. p. 656), that the reading should be ænea or ærea, is no less probable; for by this epithet its difference from ærugo ferri was frequently distinguished.Return to passage

[466] [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.]Return to passage

[467] [In England large quantities of verdigris are now prepared by arranging plates of copper alternately with pieces of coarse woollen cloth steeped in crude pyroligneous acid, which is obtained by the destructive distillation of wood.]Return to passage

[468] [Verdigris is a mixture of three compounds of acetic acid with oxide of copper, which contain a preponderance of the base, hence basic acetates; distilled verdigris is made by digesting 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.]Return to passage

[469] 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, “Ærugo, Grünspan, or Spansch-grün, quod primo ab Hispanis ad Germanos sit allata; barbari nominant viride æris.”Return to passage

[470] By Conrad Zeninger, Nuremberg. In that scarce work, Josua Maaler, Teutsche Spraach oder Dictionarium Germano-Latinum, Zurich, 1561, 4to, ærugo is called Spangrüne.Return to passage