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

555

Lib. x. c. 8. In a part of Thrace above Amphipolis, men and hawks go out a-fowling, as it were in company. The former drive the birds from among the bushes and reeds, and the latter flying after them strike them down. The fowlers divide with them their prey.

556

Phile De Animal. Proprietate, p. 36. Gesner, in his Hist. Anim. lib. iii., has collected all the information to be found respecting that species of hawk or falcon called κίρκος, circus.

557

“The Indians hunt hares and foxes in the following manner. They do not employ dogs, but eagles, crows, and, above all, kites, which they catch when young, and train for that purpose. They let loose a tame hare or fox, with a piece of flesh fastened to it, and suffer these birds to fly after it, in order to seize the flesh, which they are fond of, and which, on their return, they receive as the reward of their labour. When thus instructed to pursue their prey, they are sent after wild foxes and hares in the mountains; these they follow in hopes of obtaining their usual food, and soon catch them and bring them back to their masters, as we are informed by Ctesias. Instead of the flesh, however, which was fastened to the tame animals, they receive as food the entrails of the wild ones which they have caught.” – Æliani Hist. Animal. lib. iv. c. 26. Compare with this what Pluche says in Nature Displayed, and the accounts given by Chardin and Gemelli Carreri.

558

Martial. Epigr. lib. xiv. 216.

559

Digest. lib. xliii. tit. 24, 22.

560

“Those born when the planet Venus is in Aquarius will be much given to hunting and fowling; in other things they will be slow, indolent, inactive, and melancholy, and will apply to no laudable pursuit. They will, however, be fond of breeding hawks, falcons, eagles, and other birds of the like kind, and horses for hunting. They will be also very ingenious in such exercises, and acquire by them a comfortable subsistence.” – Lib. v. c. 7. This nativity displays a knowledge of mankind; for one may without much difficulty find princes and great men with whose lives it exactly corresponds, and who, to the great misfortune of their subjects and tenants, have undoubtedly been born under the sign Aquarius.

561

Plin. lib. ix. Ælian. Hist. Anim. 1. ii. Oppiani Halieut. 1. v.

562

Plin. lib. x. cap. 8. Aristot. Hist. an. 1. ix. c. 36. Ælian. Hist. An. 1. vi. c. 65. Antigonus Caryst. cap. 33.

563

Histoire Nat. de Languedoc, p. 568.

564

In Obs. on Pomp. Mela. ii. 5.

565

Istoria di Napoli, Ven. 1613, 4to, i. p. 88.

566

Radevicus de Gestis Frid. I. lib. ii. cap. ultimo.

567

See Grævii Thesaurus Antiq. et Hist. vol. vii. p. 12.

568

As this work is extremely scarce, I shall here quote the following passage from it: – “The hood had its origin among the Oriental nations; for the eastern Arabs used it more than any other people with whom we are acquainted, in taming falcons and birds of the same species. When I crossed the sea, I had an opportunity of observing that the Arabs used hoods in this art. Some of the kings of Arabia sent to me the most expert falconers, with various kinds of falcons; and I did not fail, after I had resolved to collect into a book every thing respecting falconry, to invite from Arabia and every other country such as were most skilful in it; and I received from them the best information they were able to give. Because the use of the hood was one of the most effectual methods they knew for taming hawks, and as I saw the great benefit of it, I employed a hood in training these birds; and it has been so much approved in Europe, that it is proper it should be handed down to posterity.”

569

Sainte-Palaye, Mémoires sur l’Ancienne Chevalerie, tom. iii. p. 183. In this work may be found many anecdotes respecting the taste of the French ladies for the sports of the field in the ages of chivalry.

570

Rei Accipitrariæ Scriptores. Lutet. 1612, 4to.

571

Among the works of Sir Thomas Brown, there is one on Hawks and Falconry, Ancient and Modern, which, however, consists chiefly of old medical prescriptions.

572

Remarques d’un Voyageur Moderne au Lévant. Amst. 1773, 8vo.

573

In Siberia, a village which stood on a turf-moor was, on account of its marshy situation, removed to another place; and that the remains might be more easily destroyed, they were set on fire. The flames having communicated to the soil, which was inflammable, occasioned great devastation; and when Gmelin was there, it had been continually burning for half a year. See Gmelin’s Reisen durch Russland, vol. i. p. 22.

574

The rustics, in despair, when they found the fire was unquenchable either by rain or by the river-water which they poured over it, threw in heaps of stones, beat down the flames issuing from the interstices with clubs, and as the fire became subdued flung on their clothes, which being made of skins and wetted, eventually extinguished the conflagration. See Tacitus, An. xiii. 57.

575

Hist. Nat. lib. xvi. c. 1.

576

“The foresters, who had then got a new employment, that of turf-digging, which had been before unknown, or at least very uncommon, gave as a present to the monastery of Mariengard, in 1215, several turf-bogs in and near Backefeen.” – Chronique van Vriesland door P. Winsemium, 1622, p. 158. That monastery was situated at the distance of two miles from Leeuwaarden.

In Kronijck der Kronijcken, door S. de Vries, printed at Amsterdam in 1688, the following passage occurs, vol. v. p. 553: – “About this time (1221) the digging of turf was first practised, which in some measure made amends for the damage occasioned by the sea-water, and by which several acquired great riches.”

Some Dutch writers make turf-digging to be of much higher antiquity, and in support of this opinion quote an old chronicle in rhyme, in which mention is made of a donation by Gerolf count of Friesland; but I am not acquainted with the antiquity of that chronicle, and of the letter of donation there is only a Flemish translation. See Berkhey, Nat. Hist. v. Hol. vol. ii. p. 552.

577

The use of turf was first made known in France in the year 1621, by Charles de Lamberville, advocate of the parliament of Paris, who resided some time in Holland, to which he had been sent by the king on public business. See Anciens Mineralogistes, par Gobet, i. p. 302.

578

Voyages de Monconys. Lyons, 1666, 2 vol. 4to, ii. p. 129. C’est lui (Erasme) qui a donné l’invention de la tourbe, qu’on brusle au lieu du charbon. See also Misson’s Travels.

579

Scaligerana, ii. p. 243; Je ne sçache aucun ancien, qui fasse mention de tourbes.

580

Voyages, vol. iii.

581

Leges Salicæ, ed. Eccardi, p. 42.

582

Lindenbrogii Codex Legum Antiquarum. Franc. 1613.

583

Trotz Jus Agrarium Fœd. Belgii, ii. p. 643.

584

Historia Episcopatuum Fœderati Belgii. Lugd. Bat. 1719, 2 vols. fol. i. p. 130.

585

Wiarda Altfrisisches Wörterbuch; where it is conjectured, not without probability, that the name Finland is thence derived. – Du Cange, Glossarium, under the word Venna.

586

The words are, “Morum dedit dictus comes dictæ ecclesiæ ad turfas fodiendas.”

587

Britonis Philippidos lib. ii. v. 144.

588

These lives are in Matthæi Veteris Ævi Analecta, Hag. 1738, v. p. 247.

589

I find quoted for this conjecture the Dissertation, Eelking de Belgis sæculo xii. in Germaniam advenis, Gottingæ, 1770, pp. 162, 164. But nothing further is found there than that the right of digging turf was in all probability confirmed to the colonists. This important Dissertation was written by Professor Wundt of Heidelberg.

590

This information may be found in Crymogæa, sive rerum Islandicarum libri iii. per Arngrimum Jonam Islandum. Hamburgi (1609), 4to, p. 50. “Torf cujus inventor perhibetur in Orcadibus dux quidam Orcadensis, Einarus Raugnvaldi ducis Norvegici de Maere filius, tempore pulcricomi Norveg. regis, qui idcirco Torffeinarus dictus est.”

591

“In Holland there is turf, and in England there are coals, neither of which are good for burning either in apartments or in melting-houses. I have, however, discovered a method of burning both these to good coals, so that they shall not only produce no smoke or bad smell, but yield a heat as strong for melting metals as that of wood, and throw out such flames that a foot of coal shall make a flame ten feet long. This I have demonstrated at the Hague with turf, and proved here in England with coals, in the presence of Mr. Boyle, by experiments made at Windsor on a large scale. It deserves to be remarked on this occasion, that as the Swedes procure their tar from fir-wood, I have procured tar from coals, which is in everything equal to the Swedish, and even superior to it for some purposes. I have tried it both on timber and ropes, and it has been found excellent. The king himself ordered a proof of it to be made in his presence. This is a thing of very great importance to the English, and the coals after the tar has been extracted from them are better for use than before.” – Narrische Weisheit und weise Narrheit. Frankfurt, 1683, 12mo, p. 91. Boyle seems to speak of this invention in The Usefulness of Natural Philosophy, London, 1774, fol. i. p. 515. The burning of coals in order to procure from them rock-oil, which was used particularly by the leather manufacturers, and which on that account could not be exported, was much practised in England. It appears, however, that something of the like kind was attempted before Becher’s time; for in the year 1627, John Hacket and Octav. Strada obtained a patent for their invention of rendering coals as useful as wood for fuel in houses without hurting anything by their smoke. See Anderson’s History of Commerce.

592

The practice of charring turf appears however to be much older, if it be true that charred turf was employed about the year 1560 at the Freiberg smelting-houses, though that undertaking was not attended with success. – See Hoy’s Anleitung zu einer bessern Benutzung des Torfs. Altenburg, 1781.

593

Von Carlowitz, Sylvicultura Œconomica. Leipzig, 1713, fol. p. 430, where an account is given of the first experiment.

594

In Hamburgischen Berichten, p. 93.

595

Ib. p. 170.

596

See Stapel, über die Pflanzen des Theophrast. p. 618. Salmasius ad Solinum, p. 159. Casauboni Animadv. in Athen. Lugd. 1621, fol. p. 146. Bauhini Hist. Plant. iii. p. 48.

597

Colum. lib. x. ver. 235.

598

Lud. Nonnii Diæteticon. Antv. 1646, 4to, p. 56.

599

It was said, that if the corners of the seeds were bruised, no prickles would be produced. See Geopon. lib. xii. cap. 39. [It is a well-known physiological fact in botany, that many plants which are naturally spinous, when cultivated in gardens or rich soil, become unarmed. The production of spines seems to arise from an imperfect development of the growing point of a plant; when this development is increased by the greater supply of nutriment, the spines disappear, their places being supplied by a branch having leaves. We have instances of this in the apple, pear, &c., which are naturally spinous.]

600

Geopon. l. c. Columella, xi. cap. 3.

601

Geopon. 925, where repeated watering is directed; it is said you will then have tenderer fruit, and in more abundance.

602

Virgil. Geor. i. 150. Plin. xviii. cap. 17.

603

Palladius, iv. 9, p. 934, and lib. xi. Octob. p. 987. In the first-mentioned place he gives the same direction for preventing prickles, as that quoted respecting the cinara.

604

Pliny, lib. xx. says, “The wind easily carries away the withered flowers on account of their woolly nature.”

605

Κύναρος ἄκανθα πάντα πληθύει γύην. – Sophocles, in Phœnice.

… Segnisque horreret in arvis

Carduus… – Virgil. Georg. i. 50.

606

Athen. Deipnos. at the end of the second book, p. 70. Salmasius, in his Remarks on Solinus, p. 159, is of opinion that Athenæus wrote κάρδον, not κάρδυον; and the Latins not carduus, but cardus.

607

Lib. iii. cap. 19.

608

Lib. xix. cap. 8.

609

Arctium Lappa, an indigenous weed, difficult to be rooted out. Elsholz, in his Gartenbau, speaking of the Spanish cardoons, says, “The strong stem of the large burr, Arctium Lappa, may be dressed in the same manner, and is not much different in taste.” See also Thomas Moufet’s Health’s Improvement. Lond. 1746, 8vo, p. 217.

610

Plin. lib. xxi. cap. 16.

611

Theophrastus: “Conceptus non spinosus, sed oblongus.” But Dioscorides says, “Capitulum spinosum.” This contradiction, and other small variations, have induced some to consider the scolymus of Theophrastus and that of Dioscorides as two different plants.

612

Dioscor. iii. 16.

613

Dioscor. lib. iii. cap. 10, where he says of a plant that its leaves were like those of the Scolymus, and its stem like that of the Cinara.

614

Rariorum Plantarum Historiæ, lib. iv. p. 153.

615

“In Crete there is a kind of prickly plant, which in the common Greek idiom is generally called ascolimbros. The ancient Latins called it also by a Greek name, glycyrrhizon, though different from glycyrrhiza (liquorice). It grows everywhere spontaneously, has a yellow flower, and abounds with a milky juice. The roots and leaves are usually eaten before it shoots up into a stem. We saw it exposed for sale with other herbs in the market-place of Ravenna, and at Ancona, where the women who were digging it up, gave it the name of riuci. We saw it gathered also in the Campagna di Roma, where the inhabitants called it spinaborda. This is the plant which by the modern Greeks is named ascolimbros.” – Bellonii Observationes, lib. i. cap. 18. “In Crete it is called ascolymbros, and in Lemnos scombrouolo, that is scombri carduus. This thistle abounds with a milky juice, like succory, has a yellow flower, and is excellent eating; so that I know no root cultivated in gardens which can be compared to it in taste, the parsnip not even excepted.”

616

Theophrast. Hist. Plant. p. 620. The figure which Stapel gives, p. 621, is not of the Scolymus hispanicus, but of Scolymus maculatus. It is taken from Clusius, who has also a figure of the former.

617

“I considered the heads of these poor Greeks as so many living inscriptions, which preserve to us the names mentioned by Dioscorides and Theophrastus. Though liable to different variations, they will, doubtless, be more lasting than the hardest marble, because they are every day renewed, whereas marble is effaced or destroyed. Inscriptions of this kind will preserve, therefore, to future ages the names of several plants known to those skilful Greeks who lived in happier and more learned times.” – Voyage du Levant, i. p. 34. Compare with the above what Haller says in his Biblioth. Botan. i. p. 28.

618

Plin. lib. xxi. cap. 16. See Theophrast. lib. vi. cap. 4. Theoocritus, Idyll. x. 4, mentions a lamb wounded in the foot by a cactus. Tertullian names this plant among prickly weeds, together with the rubus, in the end of the second chapter of that unintelligible book De Pallio. De la Cerda, in his excellent edition of Opera Tertulliani, Lutetiæ Paris. 1624, 2 vols. fol. i. p. 13, reads carecto instead of cacto; but Salmasius, in his edition of that work, p. 172, has sufficiently vindicated the latter.

619

Dioscorid. Alexipharm. cap. 33.

620

Theoph. p. 613.

621

The creeping branches were in particular called cacti, the upright stem pternix.

622

Theophrastus calls the bottom of the calyx περικάρπιον, a word which is still retained in botany. But he also says that the same part of the cactus was called also σκαλία; from which is derived the ascalia of Pliny. Galen calls it σπόνδυλον.

623

Theoph. This term is explained by Pliny, lib. xiii. c. 4: – “Dulcis medulla palmarum in cacumine, quod cerebrum appellant.”

624

Athen. Deipnos. at the end of the second book, p. 70. He gives everything to be found in Theophrastus; but either the author or some of his transcribers have so confused what he says, that it is almost unintelligible.

625

Herm. Barbar. ad Dioscor. iii. 15.

626

Manni de Florentinis inventis commentarium, p. 34.

627

Politiani Opera. Lugd. 1533, 8vo, p. 444.

628

Ruellius De Natura Stirpium. Bas. 1543, fol. p. 485.

629

Hakluyt, vol. ii. p. 164. Biographia Britannica, vol. iv. p. 2462; and Anderson’s History of Commerce.

630

Herm. Barbarus, in his Observations on Dioscorides.

631

Salmas. ad Solin. p. 160.

632

It is remarked in Golius’s Dictionary, p. 597, that this word signifies also the scales of a fish, and the strong scales of the calyx of the plant may have given rise to the name.

633

The Greek word is αρτυτική.

634

Glossarium Suiogothicum, i. p. 411.

635

Potatoes.

636

A variety of derivations may be found in Menage’s Dictionnaire Etymologique.

637

See Rozier, Cours Complet d’Agriculture, vol. ii. p. 14.

638

See his Travels. Geneva, 1681, fol. p. 164.

639

Virgil. Georg. lib. i. v. 144. Pontoppidan says, “Before the middle of the sixteenth century all trunks were hewn and split with the axe into two planks; whereas at present they would give seven or eight boards. This is still done in some places where there are no saw-mills in the neighbourhood; especially at Sudenoer and Amte Nordland, where a great many boats and sloops are built of such hewn boards, which are twice as strong as those sawn; but they consume too many trunks.” See Natürliche Historie von Norwegen. Copenhagen, 1753, 2 vols. 8vo, i. p. 244.

640

De Garcilasso de la Vega, Histoire des Incas.

641

Lib. vii. 1. cap. 56.

642

Epist. 90.

643

Diodor. Sicul. iv. cap. 78.

644

Apollodori Bibl. lib. iii. cap. 16.

645

Those who are desirous of seeing the whole account may consult Diodorus, or Banier’s Mythology, [or Keightley’s Mythology of Ancient Greece and Italy, p. 398, Lond. 1838.]

646

Hygin. Fab. 39, 244, 274.

647

Ad Georg. i. 143.

648

Mythographi, ed. Van Staveren, lib. iii. 2, p. 708.

649

In Mythogr. et in Ovid. Burm. lib. viii. fab. 3.

650

Orig. lib. xix. cap. 19.

651

Chiliad. i. 493.

652

Metamorph. lib. viii. 244. The following line from the Ibis, ver. 500, alludes to the same circumstance:

“Ut cui causa necis serra reperta fuit.”

653

See Cadomosto’s Voyage to Africa, in Novi Orbis Navigat. cap. 6. This account is not so ridiculous as that of Olaus Magnus, who says that the saw-fish can with his snout bore through a ship. [There are however many well-authenticated instances of the planks of ships being perforated by the upper jaw of this powerful animal, which it has been supposed occasionally attacks the hulls of vessels in mistake for the whale.]

654

Le Pitture antiche d’Ercolano, vol. i. tav. 34.

655

That cramps or hold-fasts are still formed in the same manner as those seen in the ancient painting found at Herculaneum, particularly when fine inlaid works are made, is proved by the figure in Roubo, l’Art du Menuisier, tab. xi. fig. 4, and xii. fig. 15.

656

L’Antiquité Expliquée, vol. iii. pl. 189.

657

Pallad. De Re Rust. lib. i. tit. 43. – Cicero, in his oration for Cluentius, chap. lxiv., speaks of an ingenious saw, with which a thief sawed out the bottom of a chest.

658

Ausonii Mosella, v. 361.

659

Plin. lib. xxxvi. cap. 6.

660

Vitruv. lib. ii. cap. 8.

661

Plin. lib. xxxvi. cap. 22.

662

See Jannon de S. Laurent’s treatise on the cut stones of the ancients, in Saggi di Dissertazioni nella Acad. Etrusca di Cortona, tom. vi. p. 56.

663

“Saw-mills are useful machines, first introduced in this century; and I do not know any one who can properly be called the real inventor.” – Närrische Weisheit. Frankf. 1683, 12mo, p. 78.

664

In that excellent work, Kunst-und-handwerks Geschichte der Stadt Augsburg, 1779, 8vo, p. 141.

665

This we are told by Abraham Peritsol, the Jew, in Itinera Mundi, printed with the learned annotations of Thomas Hyde, in Ugolini Thesaur. Antiq. Sacr. vol. vii. p. 103. Peritsol wrote before the year 1547.

666

Nic. Cragii Historia regis Christiani III. Hafniæ 1737, fol. p. 293. See also Pontoppidan’s History of Norway.

667

Allgemeine Welthistorie, xxxiii. p. 227.

668

The account of this journey may be found in Hardwicke’s Miscellaneous State Papers, from 1501 to 1726, i. p. 71: – “The saw-mill is driven with an upright wheel; and the water that maketh it go, is gathered whole into a narrow trough, which delivereth the same water to the wheels. This wheel hath a piece of timber put to the axle-tree end, like the handle of a broch, and fastened to the end of the saw, which being turned with the force of the water, hoisteth up and down the saw, that it continually eateth in, and the handle of the same is kept in a rigall of wood from swerving. Also the timber lieth as it were upon a ladder, which is brought by little and little to the saw with another vice.”