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

The following is the account given of these cedars by the abbé Binos, who visited them in the year 1778. “Here,” says he, “I first discovered the celebrated cedars, which grow in an oval plain, about an Italian mile in circumference. The largest stand at a considerable distance from each other, as if afraid that their branches might be entangled, or to afford room for their tender shoots to spring up, and to elevate themselves also in the course of time. These trees raise their proud summits to the height of sixty, eighty, and a hundred feet. Three or four, when young, grow up sometimes together, and form at length, by uniting their sap, a tree of a monstrous thickness. The trunk then assumes generally a square form. The thickest which I saw might be about thirty feet round; and this size was occasioned by several having been united when young. Six others, which were entirely insulated, and free from shoots, were much taller, and seemed to have been indebted for their height to the undivided effects of their sap.” These cedars, formerly so numerous, are now almost entirely destroyed. In the year 1575, Rauwolff found twenty-four that stood round about in a circle, and two others, the branches whereof are quite decayed with age; Bellon, in 1550, counted twenty-eight old trees; Fremenet, in 1630, counted twenty-two; La Roque, in 1688, twenty; Maundrell, in 1696, sixteen; Dr. Pococke, in 1738, fifteen; and Schulze, in 1755, counted twenty, besides some young ones; Burckhardt, in 1810, eleven or twelve; Dr. Richardson, in 1818, eight; Mr. Robinson, in 1830, seven; Lord Lindsay, in 1836, seven. Mr. Buckingham, in 1816, differs greatly from the other authorities, computing the whole number of trees at two hundred, of which he describes twenty as being very large. – Trans.

1420

Antiquit. lib. viii. These letters have been printed by Fabricius in Codex Pseudepigraphus Veteris Testamenti, i. p. 1026.

1421

Olymp. v. 29. Gesner, in explaining Pindar, translated φάος or φῶς by the word help, which Hebraism occurs in the New Testament, and also in Homer. The stream therefore assisted the inhabitants while under a great inconvenience.

1422

Chanaan, i. 29, p. 605.

1423

Herodot. lib. iii.

1424

See Pindar, ed. Welsted, 1697, fol. p. 53 and 56, a, 37.

1425

Vitruv. lib. ii. 9, p. 77.

1426

Plin. lib. xvi. cap. 39, p. 33 and 34.

1427

Codex Theodos. lib. xiii. tit. 5, 10. Lex xiii. p. 78. Compare Symmachi Epist. lib. x. ep. 58. As far as I know, such ordinances occur also in the Code of Justinian.

1428

See Sammlung vermischter Nachrichten zur Sächsischen Geschichte, by G. J. Grundig and J. F. Klotzsch, vol. vi. 221.

1429

Pertuchii Chronic. Portense, p. 54.

1430

Rudolphi Gotha Diplomatica, pars i. p. 279.

1431

See the Forest Laws in Fritschii Corp. Juris Ven. Forest.

1432

Wood was conveyed in boats upon the Yonne so early as the year 1527. See Coquille in Histoire du Nivernois.

1433

Traité de la Police, par De la Mare, iii. p. 839. – Savary, Dictionnaire de Commerce, art. Bois flotté and Train.

1434

De Jure Maritimo, p. i. c. 10. n. 100.

1435

H. Junii Batavia. Lugd. Bat. 1558, 4to, p. 327. – Hugo Grotius de Antiquitate Reipub. Batavicæ, cap. 4. – Délices de la Hollande. Amst. 1685, 12mo, p. 218: “Les Wassenaers tiennent leur origine d’une village qui est entre Leiden et la Haye, ou des droits qu’ils eurent les siecles passez sur les eaux, les estangs et les lacs de la Hollande.” – Those who are fond of indulging in conjecture might form the following conclusion: – The lakes and streams belonged to the Wassenaers, who kept swans, geese and ducks upon them. When the brewers were desirous of clearing the water from the duck-weed, which in Fritsch’s German Dictionary is called Enten-grutz, in order that it might be fitter for use, they were obliged to pay a certain sum to obtain permission; and when the practice of floating timber began, the floats disturbed the ducks, and destroyed the plant on which they fed, and the proprietors of floats were on this account obliged to pay a certain tax also. But was it customary at that period to float timber in the Netherlands?

1436

Glossarium Manuale, iii. p. 850: “Gruta, Grutt, Gruit, appellant tributum, quod pro cerevisia pensitatur.”

1437

This is proved by the vestes Phrygioniæ of Pliny mentioned before in the article on wire-drawing. Those who made such works were called phrygiones. In the Menæchmi of Plautus, act ii. scene 3, a young woman, desirous of sending her mantle to be embroidered, says, “Pallam illam ad phrygionem ut deferas, ut reconcinnetur, atque ut opera addantur, quæ volo.” Compare Aulul. act iii. scene 5; Non. Marcellus, i. 10; and Isidor. 19, 22. The Greeks seem to have used the words κεντεῖν and καταστίζειν as we use the word embroider.

1438

De Vestitu Sacerdot. Hebræorum, i. p. 212.

1439

Count de Marsan, the youngest son of count d’Harcourt, brought from Brussels to Paris his former nurse, named Du Mont, with her four daughters, and procured for her an exclusive right to establish and carry on the lace manufactory in that capital. In a little time Du Mont and her daughters collected more than two hundred women, many of whom were of good families, who produced such excellent work that it was in little or nothing inferior to that imported from other countries. – Vie de Jean-Bapt. Colbert, Cologne, 1696, 12mo, p. 154.

1440

The oldest information on this subject is to be found in Annabergæ Urbis Historia, auctore Paulo Jenisio. Dresdæ, 1605, 4to, ii. p. 33. – C. Melzer, Berglauftige Beschreibung der Stadt Schneeberg. 1684, p. 471. – Historia Schneebergensis. Schneeberg 1716, 4to, p. 882. – Tob. Schmidt, Zwickauische Chronik. Zwickau, 1656, 4to. ii. p. 384. – Lehmanns Historischer Schauplatz des Obererzgebirges. Leipzig, 1699, 4to, p. 771.

1441

It is difficult to form an estimate of the number of persons employed in pillow-lace making during its prosperity; but in a petition from the makers in Buckingham and the neighbourhood presented to her Majesty queen Adelaide in 1830, it was stated that 120,000 persons were dependent on the trade.

1442

Waterston’s Encyclopædia of Commerce.

1443

The old method of preparing ultramarine may be found in De Boot, Gemmarum Histor. Lugd. Bat. 1647, 8vo, p. 279. Formerly ultramarine was improperly called a precipitate or magisterium.

1444

Besides the before-mentioned proofs of the real lapis lazuli being found in Tartary, the same thing is confirmed by Tavernier in his Travels. Paulus Venetus also seems to speak of that country when he says, “Suppeditat quoque mons alius in hac provincia (Balascia) lazulum, de quo fit azurum optimum, quale etiam in mundo non invenitur. Elicitur autem ex mineris non secus ac ferrum; præbent quoque mineræ argentum.” A great many however assert that this species of stone is brought from Persia: but it is not indigenous in that country, and is carried thither from Thibet. As the Persians are remarkably fond of this paint, they endeavour to procure as much of it as possible; but Persia itself produces only the blue copper ochre, which is sometimes used there instead of ultramarine. Tavernier mentions this very particularly, and, as he dealt in precious stones, was not liable to be deceived. To rectify a prevailing mistake, I shall here insert his own words: – “In the copper mines of Persia, veins of lazur, which is much used in that country, and with which the flowers on the ceiling and roofs of apartments are painted, have also been found. Before these were discovered, the Persians had no other lazur than the real kind which comes from Tartary, and is exceedingly dear. The Persian lazur is a sort of copper ore; and when the stone is pounded and sifted, which is the process employed with the real kind, it forms a fine paint, which appears very bright and pleasant. After this discovery, the Persians durst no more purchase the Tartarian lazur; and Mahomet-Beg issued an order that painters should not use foreign but Persian lazur. This prohibition however did not long continue; for the Persian lazur could not stand the effects of the atmosphere like the real kind, but in the course of time became of a dark and dismal colour. Sometimes it was full of scales, and would not hang to the end of a soft hair brush. On this account it was soon neglected as a coloured earth, and the lazur of Tartary again introduced.” This information is confirmed also by Chardin, in Voyages en Perse, iv. p. 66. “In the country around Tauris,” says the author, “is found lapis lazuli, but it is not so good as that of Tartary, as its colour changes, becomes dark, and afterwards fades.” In page 255, he says likewise, “The lapis lazuli, called lagsverd, from which we have formed the word azur, is found in the neighbourhood, in the country of the Yousbecs, but the general magazine for it is Persia.” I do not believe that this species of stone was formerly procured from Cyprus, as is asserted in many books. Copper is a production of that island, and it produces even at present mountain blue. Those also who assert that the colour of ultramarine fades in the fire, must not have been acquainted with the genuine sort. See Schriften der Schwedischen Acad. xii. p. 69. Montamy, in Abhandlung von den Farben zum Porzellan, Leipzig, 1767, 8vo, p. 121, affirms that ultramarine is not good for enamel-painting, but it is certain that it was once used for that purpose.

1445

See Plin. lib. xxxvii. cap. 9 and 10. – Isidori Orig. xvi. 9. – Theophrast. de Lapid. § 43. – Dioscorides, v. 157. – Dionys. Orb. Desc. v. 1105. – Epiphanius de xii gemmis, § 5. – Marbodeus de Lapidibus, 53, p. 46.

1446

Lib. ii. p. 782. Jaspis aërizusa – which I certainly do not, with Salmasius, consider as the turquoise. We have blue jasper still.

1447

Plin. Inutiles scalpturæ, intervenientibus crystallinis centris. – Several learned men have understood this passage as if Pliny said that the sapphire could not be cut; but they seem not to have attended properly to the author’s words, and to have forgot what the ancient artists called centra in stones and different kinds of wood which were to be cut. This Pliny himself explains, b. xvi. c. 39. In b. xxxvii. c. 2, he reckons also “prædurum ac fragile centrum” among the faults of rock crystal, which however, when it had not this blemish, was very proper for being cut. Theophrastus uses in the same sense the word κέντρον.

1448

Aristotelis Auscultat. Mirabil. cap. 59, p. 123.

1449

Systema Mineralium. i. p. 313.

1450

Dioscorides, Parabil. i. p. 10, 11.

1451

Some years ago my former colleague, H. Laxman, discovered lapis lazuli in veins of granite near Baikal in Siberia. These veins contained also along with it felspar and a milky-coloured kind of stone, perhaps zeolite, like pyrites.

1452

Braun de Vestitu Sacerdotum. ii. p. 530. – See Michaelis Supplementa ad Lexica Hebraica, num. 1775. The name sapphire is very ancient.

1453

Plin. lib. xxxiii. cap. 13. – Aristot. Auscult. Mirab. p. 123.

1454

De Homonymis Hyles Iatricæ. Trajecti ad Rhenum, 1689, fol. p. 217.

1455

Lazul or lazur is not of Arabic, but Persian extraction. Ladschuardi or lazuardi in Persian signifies a blue colour and lapis lazuli. It ought properly to be pronounced lazuverd; but the Arabs in their pronunciation contract the v very much, so that it sounds like u; and one can say therefore lazurd. The derivative lazurdi or lazuverdi signifies blue.

The pronunciation lazul, with an l at the end, is agreeable to the common custom among the Arabs of confounding l and r; as instead of zingiber they say zengebil. The initial l is not the article, but seems to belong to the word itself, because it is not originally Arabic. It is worthy of remark, that the Spaniards call blue azul, which is plainly derived from the above word; and the l has been omitted because it was considered as the article, and thus the word was mutilated, as is often the case with foreign words among the Arabs, who say, for example, Escandria, instead of al Escandria (Alexandria).

1456

Leontius de Constructione Arateæ Sphæræ, in Astronomica Veterum Scripta, 1589, 8vo, p. 144.

1457

Biblioth. Græca, ii. p. 456.

1458

Antiquitat. Ital. Medii Ævi, ii. p. 372, 378.

1459

Introductio in Astrolog.

1460

De Morb. Curat. cap. 143.

1461

Chap. xxi. ver. 19.

1462

The exposition of Arethas is printed with Œcumenii Comm. in Nov. Test. Paris, 1630, 2 vols. fol.

1463

De Gradibus, quos vocant Simplicium, p. 362. This passage serves further to explain and confirm what I have said respecting Aristotelis Auscultat. Mirab. cap. 59, where we are told that copper-ochre promotes the growth of the hair and of the eye-brows. The works of Constantinus were printed at Basle, 1536–39, in two folio volumes.

1464

Matth. Silvaticus says, “Lapis lazuli Latinis, Arabibus Hager alzenar sive alzanar;” and also, “Lauzud. Arab. Azurinum, lapis lazuli.”

1465

Speculum Lapidum. Hamb. 1717, 8vo, p. 125.

1466

Of azur there are two sorts, one called by painters azurro oltramarino, and the other azurro dell’ Alemagna. The ultramarine is that made of the stone known by the name of lapis lazuli, which is the proper matrix of gold ore. This stone, after being pounded and washed, is reduced to an impalpable powder. It is then brought back to its lively and beautiful colour by means of a certain paste composed with gum, and is refined and freed from all moisture. This kind is that most esteemed; and according to its colour and fineness is purchased at a high price by painters; for it not only adds great beauty to paintings, but it withstands fire and water – two powers which other colours are not able to resist. – Pirotechnia, p. 38. The German azur of Biringoccio is not smalt; for he describes that colour before under the name of zaffera.

See also Fallopius, who in 1557 wrote his book De Metallis seu Fossilibus, chap, xxxiii. p. 338, who observes that ultramarine was then selling for 100 golden scudi per ounce.

1467

As young Pigna applied too closely to study, Bartholom. Ricci, in a letter still extant, advised him to be more moderate, as he was not compelled by necessity to labour so hard. “Without it,” he observes, “you are possessed of an estate sufficiently ample. Farms, country and town houses, the choicest furniture, all your own: besides, you have a father who is as good as a hundred estates to you; who in preparing one blue colour, called ultramarine (to say nothing of his skill and large profits in compounding medicines), has exclusively the secret, and is thereby enabled to acquire great riches, and indeed is daily adding to his store.” – Riccii Opera, vol. ii. p. 336; and Tirabosci Bibliotheca Modenese, vol. iv. p. 134.

1468

Institut. Chemiæ, p. 45.

1469

The work of Alexius Pedemontanus De Secretis is no contemptible source from which materials may be drawn for the technological History of Inventions; and on this account it will perhaps afford pleasure to many if I here give an account of the author, according to such information as I have been able to obtain. Conrad Gesner seems not to have known anything of him, as he is not mentioned either in his Epistolæ Medicinales or his Bibliotheca. Ciaconius, in Bibliotheca Libros et Scriptores fere cunctos complectens, Parisiis, 1731, fol. p. 94, says that his real name was Hieronymus Ruscellai. The same account is given by Haller in Biblioth. Botan., &c. Gobet, in Les Anciens Minéralogistes de France, Paris, 1779, 8vo, ii. p. 705, tells us that this Jerome Ruscellai died in 1565; and that his book was composed from his papers by Franc. Sansovino, who published many works not his own, and printed for the first time at Milan, in 1557. I have nowhere found a particular account of this Ruscellai; and indeed it is always laborious to search out any of that noble family, which I have already spoken in the article Lacmus. He appears to me to be none of those mentioned in Jochers Gelehrten-Lexicon. I have met with no earlier edition of his works than that of 1557: but I suspect that the first must be older. However much the book may have been sought after, it seems to me improbable that three editions should be published in Italian in the course of the first year; for, besides that of Milan, two editions printed at Venice the same year, one in quarto and another in octavo, are still extant. A French translation also was published at Antwerp, in 1557. Is it possible that an English translation could be published at London in 1558, if the original appeared for the first time only in 1557? At that period translations were not made so speedily. The Secrets of Alexis, London, 1558, is mentioned in Ames’s Typographical Antiquities, p. 296. I have in my possession a French translation by Christofle Landré, Paris, 1576, 12mo, which I seldom find quoted. It has a large appendix, collected from various authors.

It is well-known that Joh. Jacob Wecker, a physician at Colmar, translated into Latin this book of Alexius, and enlarged it with additions, under the title of De Secretis Libri xvii. The first edition, as Haller says, was printed at Basle in 1559, 8vo. Every edition seems to differ from the preceding; many things are omitted, and the new additions are for the most part of little importance. I have the edition of Basle, 1592, 8vo, in which there is a great deal not to be found in that of 1662, and which wants some things contained in the edition of 1582. The latest editions are printed from that improved by Theod. Zwinger, Basle, 1701, 8vo. The last by Zwinger, was published at Basle in 1753. Though these books on the arts, as they are called, contain many falsehoods, they are still worthy of some notice, as they may be reckoned among the first works printed on technology, and have as much induced learned men to pay attention to mechanics and the arts, as they have artists to pay attention to books and written information.

1470

See Savary, Dict. de Commerce, art. Outremer, which has been copied into Rolt’s Dictionary of Trade, Lond. 1756, fol.

1471

Chemical Gazette, May 31, 1845.

1472

See what is said under the article Artificial Rubies.

1473

See the Annotations on Arist. Auscult. Mirab. p. 98.

1474

I am of opinion that this Latin name for cobalt was first used by Agricola.

1475

Lib. xxxiii. cap. 13. Theophrast. De Lapid. § 97.

1476

Aristot. Auscult. Mirab. p. 123.

1477

Bowles, Introducion à la Historia Natural y à la Geographia Fisica de España. – Madrit, 1775 p. 399.

1478

Recherches Philosophiques sur les Egyptiens et les Chinois. Berlin, 1773, i. p. 345. – Delaval’s Experimental Inquiry into the Cause of the Changes of Colour in Opake and Coloured Bodies. Lond. 1774, 4to, p. 56.

1479

Briefe aus Welschland. Prag, 1773, 8vo, p. 114, 136, 223.

1480

Blue enameled figures of the Egyptian deities may be found in Marbres de la Galerie de Dresde, tab. 190.

1481

[The blue colour of the glass, of which the beautiful Portland Vase is composed, is owing to cobalt.]

1482

Déscription de la Chine, ii. p. 223, 230, 232. I have, however, often heard, and even remarked myself, that the blue on the new Chinese porcelain is not so beautiful as that on the old.

1483

De Cæruleo Vitro in Antiquis Monumentis, in Comment. Soc. Götting. 1779, vol. ii. p. 41.

1484

Comment. Soc. Götting. 1781, iv. p. 20.

1485

Briefe, p. 30.

1486

Beytrage zu der Abhand. v. Edelsteinen. Bruns. 1778, 8vo, p. 55.

1487

Mathesius, in his tenth Sermon, p. 501, where he speaks of the cadmia fossilis, says, “Ye miners call it kobolt; the Germans call the black devil, and the old devil’s whores and hags, old and black kobel, which by their witchcraft do injury to people and to their cattle.”… Whether the devil, therefore, and his hags gave this name to cobalt, or cobalt gave its name to witches, it is a poisonous and noxious metal. Agricola, De Animantibus Subterraneis, says, at the end, “Dæmones, quos Germanorum alii, aut etiam Græci, vocant cobalos, quod hominum sunt imitatores.” Bochart, in his Canaan, i. 18, p. 484, gives a Hebrew derivation of κόβαλος. It appears to be the same as covalus and gobelinus, the latter of which was used by Ordericus Vitalis in the eleventh century as the name of a spirit or phantom. See Menage, Diction. Etymol. i. 681.

1488

Sammlung zur Sächsischen Geschichte, iv. p. 363.

1489

Melzer’s Berglauftige Beschreibung der Stadt Schneeberg, 1684, 4to, p. 405. The same account is given in his Historia Schneebergensis, 1716, 4to. In these works one may see the dispositions made from time to time by the electors of Saxony, to support this highly profitable manufacture. The latest information on this subject is to be found in Hoffmann’s Abhandlung über die Eisenhütten, Hof. 1785, 4to.

1490

Cadmiologia, i. p. 14.

1491

Speculum Metallurgiæ Politissimum. Dresden, 1700, fol. p. 165.

1492

I say, in the beginning of the sixteenth century, on the authority of the following information in Melzer, which seems not to have been noticed by others: – “Peter Weidenhammer, a Franconian, came hither poor; but by means of a colour he procured from pounded bismuth, and of which he exported many quintals to Venice, at the rate of twenty-five dollars per quintal, he soon acquired great riches, and built a beautiful house in the market-place. His name is inscribed in the lower window of the chancel of the great church, with the date 1520.” At that period a great deal of this paint was prepared at Venice, and it may therefore be easily comprehended how Vannuccio could be so early acquainted with zaffera.

1493

How early manufactories for blue paint were erected beyond the boundaries of Saxony and Bohemia I do not know, as I have found no information on that subject. We are however told by Calvor, in Beschreibung des Maschinenwesens am Oberharze, ii. p. 202, that a person was engaged to superintend the blue-paint-manufactory at St. Andreasberg in the year 1698.