A History of Inventions, Discoveries, and Origins, Volume I (of 2)

I shall observe in the last place, that in the year 1472, Stum-wine, as it is called, was prohibited as a bad liquor prejudicial to the health754. By this term is understood wine, the fermentation of which has been checked, and which on that account continues sweet; seldom becomes clear; and, even when it clarifies, turns muddy when exposed to the air, because the fermentation, which has been stopped, again commences755. Wines of this kind are allowed at present. They are called vina muta or suffocata, and have a great resemblance to a sort of wine made principally at Bordeaux, to which the French give the name of vin en rage.

[In no country of the world has the adulteration and brewing of wines attained to such a pitch of perfection as in this “tight little island.” So impudently and notoriously are these frauds practised, and so boldly are they avowed, that there are books published called ‘Publican’s Guides’ and ‘Licensed Victuallers’ Directors,’ in which the most infamous receipts imaginable are laid down to swindle their customers756. One of these recommends port wine to be manufactured, after sulphuring a cask, with twelve gallons of strong port; six of rectified spirit; three of cognac brandy; forty-two of fine rough cider; making sixty-three gallons, which cost about eighteen shillings a dozen. Another receipt is forty-five gallons of cider; six of brandy; eight of port wine; two gallons of sloes stewed in two gallons of water, and the liquor pressed off. If the colour is not good, tincture of red sanders or cudbear is directed to be added. This may be bottled in a few days, and a tea-spoonful of powder of catechu being added to each, a fine crusted appearance on the bottles will quickly follow. The ends of the corks being soaked in a strong decoction of brazil-wood and a little alum, will complete this interesting process, and give them the appearance of age. Oak-bark, elder, brazil-wood, privet, beet, turnsole, are all used in making fictitious port wine.

The wines of Madeira are in like manner adulterated or wholly manufactured in England, which from these devices may justly claim the title of a universal wine country, where every species is made if it be not grown. The basis of the adulteration of madeira is vidonia, mingled with a little port, mountain, and cape, sugar-candy and bitter-almonds, and the colour made lighter or deepened to the proper shade, as the case may require. Even vidonia itself is adulterated with cider, rum, and carbonate of soda to correct acidity. Bucellas, cape, in short every species of wine that it is worth while to imitate, is adulterated or manufactured in this country with cheaper substances. Common Sicilian wine has been metamorphosed so as to pass for tokay and lachryma christi; even cape wine itself has been imitated by liquids, if possible inferior to the genuine article.

Gooseberry wine is often passed off for champagne; the very bottles are bought up for the purpose of filling with gooseberry wine, and are then corked to resemble champagne. It has also been made from white and raw sugar, citric or tartaric acid, water, home-made grape wine or perry and French brandy – cochineal or strawberries have been added to imitate the pink. In fact vegetation has been exhausted, and the bowels of the earth ransacked to supply trash for this most vicious practice.

Redding observes, in his valuable and most interesting work on the History and Description of Modern Wines, that the clumsy attempts at wine-brewing made a century ago would be scorned by a modern adept. It is said that when George the Fourth was in the “high and palmy” days of early dissipation, he possessed a very small quantity of remarkably choice and scarce wine. The gentlemen of his suite, whose taste was hardly second to their master’s, finding it had not been demanded, thought it was forgotten, and, relishing its virtues, exhausted it almost to the last bottle, when they were surprised by the unexpected command that the wine should be forthcoming at an entertainment on the following day. Consternation was visible on their faces; a hope of escaping discovery hardly existed, when one of them, as a last resource, went off in haste to a noted wine-brewer in the city, numbered among his acquaintance, and related his dilemma. “Have you any of the wine left for a specimen?” said the adept; “O yes, there are a couple of bottles.” “Well then, send me one, and I will forward the necessary quantity in time; only tell me the latest moment it can be received, for it must be drunk immediately.” The wine was sent, the deception answered; the princely hilarity was disturbed by no discovery of the fictitious potation, and the manufacturer was thought a very clever fellow by his friends. What would Sir Richard Steele have said to so neat an imitation, when in his day he complains that sinister fabrications were coarsely managed with sloe-juice? the science of adulteration must then have been in its infancy.]

ARTIFICIAL PEARLS

Those round calcareous757 excrescences found both in the bodies and shells, especially on the nacreous coat, of several kinds of shell-fish758, have been much used as ornaments since the earliest ages759. The beautiful play of colours exhibited on their surface has raised them to a high value760; and this they have always retained on account of their scarcity and the expense arising from the laborious manner in which they are collected761. By the increase of luxury among the European nations, the use of pearls has become more common; and even in Pliny’s time they were worn by the wives of the inferior public officers, in order that they might vie in the costliness of their dress with ladies of the first rank. It is probable, therefore, that methods were early invented to occasion or hasten the formation of pearls; and as at present those who cannot afford to purchase gold, jewels, and porcelain, use in their stead pinchbeck, artificial gems, and stone-ware, so methods were fallen upon to make artificial pearls.

The art of forcing shell-fish to produce pearls was known, in the first centuries of the christian æra to the inhabitants of the coasts of the Red-sea, as we are told by the philosopher Apollonius, who thought that circumstance worthy of particular notice. The Indians dived into the sea, after they had rendered it calm and more transparent by pouring oil into it. They then enticed the fish by means of some bait to open their shells; and having pricked them with a sharp pointed instrument, received the liquor that flowed from them in small holes made in an iron vessel, in which they hardened into real pearls762. Olearius says that this account is to be found in no other author: but it has at least been copied by Tzetzes763.

We are as yet too little acquainted with shell-fish to be able to determine with certainty how much truth there really may be in this relation: but there is great reason to conjecture from it that the people who lived on the borders of the Red-sea were then acquainted with a method of forcing shell-fish to produce pearls; and as the arts in general of the ancient Indians have been preserved without much variation, the process employed by the Chinese at present, to cause a certain kind of mussels to form pearls, seems to confirm the account given by Philostratus. In the beginning of summer, at the time when the mussels repair to the surface of the water and open their shells, five or six small beads, made of mother-of-pearl, and strung on a thread, are thrown into each of them. At the end of a year, when the mussels are drawn up and opened, the beads are found covered with a pearly crust, in such a manner that they have a perfect resemblance to real pearls. The truth of this information cannot be doubted, though some experiments made in Bohemia for the same purpose were not attended with success764. It has been confirmed by various persons765, and it is very probable that some operations and secrets, without which the process would prove fruitless even in China, may be unknown to the Europeans. Besides, many observations are known which seem to show the possibility of such an effect being produced. Fabricius says that he saw in the possession of Sir Joseph Banks, at London, large Chamæ766, brought from China, in which there were several bits of iron wire, incrusted with a substance of a perfect pearly nature767. These bits of wire, he said, had been sharp, and it appeared as if the mussels, to secure themselves against the points of the wire, had covered them with this substance, by which means they had been rendered blunt. May not therefore the process employed by the ancients be still practised? And may not these bits of wire have been the same as those spikes used by the people in the neighbourhood of the Red-sea for pricking mussels, and which perhaps slipped from the hands of the Chinese workmen and remained in the animals?

The invention therefore of Linnæus cannot be called altogether new. That great man informed the king and council in the year 1761, that he had discovered an art by which mussels might be made to produce pearls, and he offered to disclose the method for the benefit of the kingdom. This however was not done, but he disposed of his secret to one Bagge, a merchant at Gottenburg, for the sum of eighteen thousand copper dollars, which make about five hundred ducats. In the year 1780, the heirs of this merchant wished to sell to the highest bidder the sealed-up receipt768: but whether the paper was purchased, or who bought it, I do not know; for Professor Retzius at Lund, of whom I inquired respecting it, could not inform me769. In the year 1763, it was said in the German newspapers, that Linnæus was ennobled on account of this discovery, and that he bore a pearl in his coat of arms; but both these assertions are false, though Fabricius conjectures that the first may be true770. Linnæus received his patent of nobility, which, together with his arms, I have seen, in the year 1756, consequently long before he said anything respecting that discovery, of which the patent does not make the least mention. What in his arms has been taken for a pearl, is an egg, by which M. Tilas, whose business it then was to blazon the arms of ennobled families, meant to represent all nature, after the manner of the ancient Egyptians. The arms are divided into three fields, each of which, by the colour forming the ground, expresses one of the kingdoms of nature; the red signifying the animal, and the green the vegetable, &c. Over the helmet, by way of crest, is placed the Linnæa771; that beautiful little moth the Phalæna linneella, shining with its silvery colours, is displayed around the border instead of festoons; and below is the following motto, Famam extendere factis. Linnæus once showed me, among his collection of shells, a small box filled with pearl, and said, “Hos uniones confeci artificio meo; sunt tantum quinque annorum, et tamen tam magni.” “These pearls I made by my art, and though so large they are only five years old.” They were deposited near the Unio margaritifera, from which most of the Swedish pearls are procured; and the son, who was however not acquainted with his father’s secret, said the experiments were made only on this kind of mussel, though Linnæus himself assured me that they would succeed on all kinds.

I conjecture that Linnæus alluded to this art in his writings so early as the year 1746, or long before he ever thought of keeping it a secret. The passage I mean is in the sixth edition of his Systema Naturæ, where he says, “Margarita. Testæ excrescentia latere interiore, dum exterius latus perforatur772.” I once told him that I had discovered his secret in his own works; but he seemed to be displeased, did not inquire after the passage, and changed the discourse. That pearls are produced when the shells have been pierced or injured in a certain manner, is highly probable, and has been in modern times often remarked773. It appears also, that the animal has the power of sometimes filling up such openings with a calcareous substance, which it deposits in them. This substance assumes the figure of the orifice, and the animal particles it contains give it its brightness and lustre774. Pearl-fishers have long known that mussels, the shells of which are rough and irregular, or which exhibit marks of violence, commonly contain pearls, though they are found also in others in which the same appearances are not observed775. I am perfectly aware that some experiments made by piercing the shells of mussels, have been unsuccessful776; but this does not prove that it is impossible to procure pearls in that manner. Those who made them did not perhaps pierce the proper part of the shell; perhaps they made the orifice so large that it weakened the animal; and they may not have chosen the fittest season of the year. The strongest objection however which can be made on this subject, is the undeniable truth that the proper valuable pearls are not found adhering to the shell, but in the body only; and that therefore those calcareous balls which fill up holes, cannot be perfect pearls. But from the words of Linnæus above-quoted, I am led to conjecture, that he only made a hole in the shell without piercing it quite through. Linnæus also may have done some injury to the animal itself when it opened its shell; for it is certain that testaceous animals are strong-lived, and can easily sustain any violence. It appears by the Transactions of the Swedish Academy, that some have been of opinion that shell-fish might be made to produce pearls by a particular kind of nourishment; and Lister777 thinks that these excrescences would be more abundant, were the mussels placed in water impregnated with calcareous matter; but Professor Linnæus seems certain that his father employed none of these methods.

Under the name of false or artificial pearls are understood at present small beads, so prepared by art as to approach very near to real pearls in shape, lustre, colour, and polish. It appears that in Pliny’s time such were not known, else he certainly would have mentioned them. The invention was not easy, and this difficulty to imitate pearls has contributed, with the reasons before mentioned, to keep up their value. It would seem that at first, hopes were entertained of finding a method to make large pearls from small or broken ones. Tzetzes speaks of this imagined art, and receipts for that purpose have been still retained in various books, where they fill up room and amuse the ignorant; for it is hardly possible to give to the pulverised calcareous matter sufficient hardness, and that lustre which belongs only to the surface of real pearls, and which, when these are destroyed, is irrecoverably lost. More ingenious was the idea of making pearl-coloured glass beads of that kind called margaritini778; but it excites no wonder that this was not done earlier, although the art of making coloured glass is very old; for opal colours are obtained only by a skilful process and the addition of putty, bone-ashes, and other substances. Still earlier was the invention of making hollow glass beads, which were incrusted on the inside with a pearl-coloured varnish. This method was first pursued, as far as I have been able to learn, by some artists at Murano; but their invention seems to have been considered by the government as too fraudulent, and was therefore prohibited, as we are told by Francis Massarius, who lived in the beginning of the sixteenth century at Venice, and must therefore have had an opportunity of knowing the truth of this circumstance779. Some say that an amalgam of quicksilver was used for these pearls; and if that was the case, the object of the Venetian prohibition was rather of a medical nature. After this, small balls of wax or gum were covered with a pearl-coloured enamel. These were praised on account of their lustre; but as their beauty was destroyed by moisture, they did not continue long in use780. A French bead-maker, however, named Jaquin, at length found out the manner of preparing the glass pearls used at present, which excel all others, and which approach as near to nature as possible, without being too expensive.

Jaquin once observed, at his estate near Passy, that when those small fish called ables or ablettes were washed, the water was filled with fine silver-coloured particles. He suffered this water therefore to stand for some time, and obtained from it a sediment which had the lustre of the most beautiful pearls; and which on that account led him to the attempt of making pearls from it781. He scraped off the scales of the fish, and called the soft shining powder, which was diffused in the water, essence of pearl, or essence d’orient782. At first he covered with it small beads made of gypsum, or hardened paste; and, as everything new, particularly in France, is eagerly sought after, this invention was greatly admired and commended. The ladies, however, for whose use it was chiefly intended, soon found that it did not entirely answer their expectations. They were displeased because this pearly coat, when exposed to heat, separated from the beads, adhered to the skin, and gave it a brightness which they did not wish. They proposed themselves, that small hollow glass beads might be covered, in the inside, in the same manner as mirrors are silvered, with the essence of pearl; and thus was brought to perfection an art of which the following account will enable the reader to form some idea.

Of a kind of glass easy to be melted, and made sometimes a little bluish or dark, slender tubes are prepared, which are called girasols783. From these the artist blows, by means of a lamp, as many small hollow globules as he may have occasion for. One workman can in a day blow six thousand; but when they are required to be extremely beautiful, only twelve or fifteen hundred; and that they may have a greater resemblance to nature, he gives them sometimes blemishes, like those generally observed in real pearls. They are made on all figures; some shaped like a pear, others like an olive, and some that may be considered as coques de perles784. To overlie these thin glass bubbles he mixes the pearl essence with a solution of isinglass; and the more of the former he uses, the more beautiful and more valuable the pearls become. This varnish, when heated, he blows into each globule with a fine glass pipe, and spreads it over the whole internal surface, by shaking the pearls thus prepared in a vessel placed over the table where he is at work, and which he puts in motion by his foot, until the varnish is equally diffused all over the inside of them, and becomes dry. Sometimes he adds to the essence some red, yellow, or blue colour; but as this is a deviation from nature, it is not accounted a beauty. To give these tender globules more solidity and strength, they are filled with white wax. They are then bored through with a needle, and threaded in strings for sale. The holes in the finer sort, however, are first lined with thin paper, that the thread may not adhere to the wax785.

The name able, or ablette, is given to several species of fish; but that which produces the pearl-essence is the Cyprinus alburnus, called in English the bleak. Professor Hermann, at Strasburg, was so kind as to send me one of these fish, which was caught there for the purpose of making pearl-essence, and which was dried so carefully that the species could with certainty be distinguished. It corresponded exactly with the figure given in Duhamel786, which has almost a perfect resemblance to that given by Schoneveld787. May not the alburnus mentioned by Ausonius among the inhabitants of the Moselle, be the same? At any rate, the bleak is to be found only in fresh water; and on account of its voracity bites readily at the hook. It is caught for the use of the French manufacturers in the Seine, the Loire, the Saone, the Rhine788, and several other rivers. To obtain a pound of scales above 4000 fish are necessary; and these do not produce four ounces of pearl essence; so that from eighteen to twenty thousand are requisite to have a pound of it. In the Chalonnois, the fishermen get for a pound of washed scales fifteen, eighteen, and twenty-five livres. The fish, which are four inches in length, and which have not a very good taste, are sold at a cheap rate, after their scales have been scraped off. At St. John de Maizel, or Mezel, in the Chalonnois, there was a manufactory in which 10,000 pearls were made daily789.

The first makers of these pearls must have laboured under a very great inconvenience, as they were acquainted with no method of preserving the fishy particles for any time. They were obliged to use the essence immediately, because it soon putrefied and contracted an intolerable stench. The great consumption, however, required that the scales should be brought from distant provinces. Attempts were made to preserve them in spirit of wine or brandy; but these liquors destroyed their lustre, and left them only a dull white colour. In the like manner brandy spoiled a real pearl, which, with the animal and the shell (Mactra lutraria), was sent to me by Dr. Taube, at Zell. It was therefore a very important discovery for this art that these animal particles can be kept for a long time in solution of ammonia, which is now alone used, and which perhaps could be used for many other purposes of the like kind.

That the inventor of these pearls was called Jaquin, and that he was a bead-maker at Paris, all agree; but the time of the invention seems to be uncertain. Some say that it belongs to the reign of Henry IV.790; and Reaumur mentions the year 1656. These pearls, however, in the year 1686, when Jaquin had an assistant named Breton, must not have been very common; for we are told in the Mercure Galant of that year, that a marquis possessed of very little property, who was enamoured of a lady, gained her affections and carried his point by presenting her with a string of them, which cost only three louis; and which she, considering them as real ones, valued at 2000 francs. The servant who put the marquis on this stratagem, declared that these pearls withstood heat and the moisture occasioned by perspiration; that they were not easily scratched, had almost the same weight as real ones, and that the person who sold them warranted their durability in writing. Jewellers and pawnbrokers have, therefore, been often deceived by them. Jaquin’s heirs continued this business down to a late period, and had a considerable manufactory au Rue de Petit Lion at Paris.

PAVING OF STREETS

The most beneficial regulations of police, which we have inherited from our ancestors, are at present considered to be so indispensable or necessary, that many people imagine they must at all times have existed. If one, however, takes the trouble to inquire into the antiquity of these regulations, it will be found that the greater part of them are new, and that they were unknown to the largest and most magnificent cities of ancient times. Among these are posts791, the night-watch, hackney coaches, and, besides many others, the paving of streets.

Several cities, indeed, had paved streets before the beginning of the Christian æra; but those which are at present the ornament of Europe, Rome excepted, were all destitute of this great advantage, till almost the twelfth or thirteenth century. I must nevertheless acknowledge, that in the Greek and Roman authors I have hitherto met with more proofs of paved highways than of paved streets. But we have reason to believe that the richest nations paid attention to the streets before their doors, sooner than to the roads before their gates. In all probability, the former were paved at different times, and by private persons; and required so little expense and so few regulations, that no occasion was given to remark the time when it was done. On the other hand, for the constructing of highways many miles in length, the concurrence of states, and the consent and assistance of all the inhabitants, were necessary; and, on that account, such circumstances were inserted in annals, and they were sometimes copied afterwards by historians, and mentioned in their works. In the East, where the roads are not spoiled, as among us, by snow, ice, and rain, and where many cities were built on eminences and in dry situations, the paving of streets and highways may have been later thought of than might be expected, when we consider the refinement of the ancient people who inhabited that country, and the progress they had made in the arts. Such undertakings also were often retarded by the want of stone; an obstacle which many nations overcame with an ingenuity and patience at which we, among whom workmen are fewer, and the price of labour higher, because we have more wants, and enjoy more liberty, are not a little astonished. It is however to be conjectured, that those people who first carried on the greatest trade were the first who paid attention to have good streets and highways, in order to facilitate intercourse, so necessary to keep up the spirit of commerce.