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

238

Femina canitiem Germanis inficit herbis.

Ovidius De Arte Amandi, iii. 163.

239

Valer. Max. i. 5, p. 135: Capillos cinere rutilarunt.

Ad rutilam speciem nigros flavescere crines,

Unguento cineris prædixit Plinius auctor.

Q. Serenus, De Medic. iv. 56.

Serenus seems to allude to a passage of Pliny, xxiii. 2, p. 306, where he speaks of an ointment made from the burnt lees of vinegar and oleum lentiscinum. The same thing is mentioned in Dioscorides, v. 132, p. 379. Servius, Æn. iv. quotes the following words from Cato: “Mulieres nostræ cinere capillum ungitabant, ut rutilus esset crinis.” Alex. Trallianus, 1, 3, gives directions how to make an ointment for gray hair from soap and the ashes of the white flowers of the Verbascum. The Cinerarii, however, of Tertullian, lib. ii. ad uxor. 8, p. 641, seem to have been only hair-dressers, who were so called because they warmed their curling-irons among the hot ashes.

240

Pliny says that spots of the skin may be removed by ox-gall.

241

Odyss. vi. 91.

242

Iliad, ix. 14, and xvi. 4.

243

Geopon. vii. 6. – Plin. xiv. cap. 21. – Columella, xii. 50. 14.

244

Arnobius, vii. p. 237.

245

The word λίτρον in Pollux ought not to have been translated sapo.

246

Cicer. Ep. Fam. viii. 14. – Pollucis Onom. viii. 9, 39; x. 135. – Ovid. De Medicam. Faciei, ver. 73 et 85. – Phavorini Dictionar. p. 527. Gynesius calls clothes washed with nitrum, νιτρούμενα, nitro perfricata.

247

Lib. xi. p. 801.

248

De Mirabil. Auscult. c. 54.

249

Hist. Mirab. c. 162, p. 216.

250

Lib. xxxi. 10, p. 564.

251

J. D. Michaelis Commentationes, 4to, p. 151. I must mention also C. Schoettgenii Antiquitates Fulloniæ, Traj. 1727, 8vo. My readers will do me a pleasure if they compare the above work with this article. No one will accuse me of vanity when I pretend to understand the theory of washing better than the learned Schöttgen; but if I have explained the passages which he quotes in a more satisfactory manner, and turned them to more advantage, I must ascribe this superiority to my knowledge of that art. I shall here take occasion to remark, that there is no subject, however trifling, which may not be rendered useful, or at least agreeable, by being treated in a scientific manner; and to turn such into ridicule, instead of displaying wit, would betray a want of judgment.

252

Plin. xxviii. 6; xxviii. 8. – Martial. vi. ep. 93. – Athenæus, xi. p. 484. Macrobius, ii. 12, speaking of drunken people, “Dum eunt, nulla est in angiporto amphora, quam non impleant, quippe qui vesicam plenam vini habeant.” This passage is quoted also in Joh. Sarisberg. Polior. viii. 7, p. 479.

253

Sueton. in Vita Vespas. viii. 23.

254

Porner’s Anleitung zur Farbekunst, p. 31.

255

Those numbered 3, 4, 5, 6.

256

This plant was sent by Imperati to Casp. Bauhin, under the name of lanaria veterum; and the latter made it first known in his Pinax Plant. iv. p. 206. The former described it himself, and gave a bad engraving of it, in Hist. Nat. p. 871. Löffling found this plant on the Spanish mountains, as well as in the neighbourhood of Aranjuez; and he relates, that in the province of La Mancha the people boil clothes that are to be washed with the root of this plant instead of soap. Linnæus did not hesitate to declare the struthium of the ancients and the struthium of his system to be the same plant; and he gave his countrymen reason to hope that their Gypsophila fastigiata, which has a great resemblance to it, might be employed in the like manner. – Amœnitat. Academ. v. p. 329.

257

Salmas. ad Solin. p. 818. a.

258

De Alimentor. Facultate, i. cap. 19. in Op. vol. iv. p. 315.

259

Lib. xvii. 18.

260

Pollux. – Plin.

261

Dioscor.

262

This terra Lemnia is entirely different from sealing-earth. See Galen. De Simplic. Med.

263

Plin.

264

Plin. The Sarda was cheap, and purchased by measure; the Umbria was dearer, and sold by weight.

265

Theophrast. Dioscor.

266

I here mean that it got its name from being employed to clean that piece of armour, formerly used, which covered only the breast and the back, and which was called a koller. The Swedes also call yellow iron-ochre kiöllerfärg or kyllerfarg.

267

See Taubmann’s Annotations to Plauti Aulular. iv. sc. 9, 6.

268

Geopon. vii. 6. – Plin. xiv. cap. 21. – Columella, xii. 50, 14.

269

Pollux, vii. 11, 41, 715. – Plin. xxxv. 17, p. 719; and xxxv. 15, p. 714. – Isidor. Origin. xvi. 1.

270

Lib. xxxv. cap. 17, sec. 57.

271

Du Cange in his Glossarium.

272

I acknowledge myself one of those who cannot form a proper idea of the Roman toga. It is certain that the weavers made each piece of cloth only large enough to be fit for this article of dress; or that when one toga was wove, it was cut from the loom, in order that another might be begun. On this account we find so often the expressions texere vestes, texere togas. It appears, also, that the toga, when it came from the hands of the weaver, was quite ready for use; and we therefore never read of tailors, but when torn clothes were to be mended. The toga had no sleeves, and perhaps no seam. If it was stitched along the edges before, half-way up, the assistance of a tailor would not be necessary for that purpose. It was bound round the body with a girdle, and fastened with clasps. Such a mantle could be easily made and easily scoured. One may now readily comprehend why the Roman authors never mention cloth manufactories, or cloth, among the articles of commerce, but speak only of clothes; and why we never read of cloth being measured.

273

Waterston’s Encyclopædia of Commerce.

274

Some also may with equal propriety have called it sandyx; and I am of opinion that under this name we are to understand our madder, at least in a passage of Virgil, Eclogue iv. 45, where he says, “Sponte sua sandyx pascentes vestiet agnos.” As the wool of the sheep became red by eating the madder which grew in the fields, it could be immediately manufactured, without dyeing it artificially. We manufacture the wool of our brown sheep in its natural colour, and this was done also by the ancients. Cloths of this kind were the panni nativi coloris, as they are called by Pliny, xxxvi. 7; and the words of Martial, xiv. 133, allude to a dress made of such cloth:

Non est lana mihi mendax, nec mutor aëno,

… me mea tinxit ovis.

I shall here take occasion to remark, that the word lutum, in the line preceding the above passage of Virgil, must be translated yellow-weed, and not woad. The former, Reseda luteola, dyes yellow; but the latter, Isatis, dyes blue. Lutum, however, in Cæsar De bello Gallico, v. 14, seems to have been woad: “Omnes se Britanni luteo inficiunt, quod et cæruleum efficit colorem.” It appears, therefore, that both names were liable to be confounded in the Latin, as they are in the German; unless Davis be right, who, instead of luteo, reads vitro. That sandyx, in Virgil, signifies a plant rather than a mineral, is to me far more probable. The author speaks of plants which the sheep ate while feeding (pascentes); and both the above-mentioned dye-plants, yellow-weed and woad, grow wild in Italy. The opinion of Pliny, who understood the passage so, is not to be despised; and therefore the poetical account, that the pasture dyed the wool, is not altogether without foundation; especially as not only the roots, but also the leaves of madder, communicate a colour to the solid parts of animal bodies. I will however allow that most people readily fall into the error of being led away by imagination; and often suppose that they find in passages of ancient authors more than others can discover, or perhaps even than they contain.

275

Lib. xxiv. 9, p. 341.

276

The first account of this circumstance may be found in the Philosophical Transactions, vol. xxxix. n. 442, p. 287; n. 443, p. 299. Among the principal experiments made on this subject, are those of the Italian Matth. Bazanus, in Comment. Bononiens. and of J. H. Benj. Böhmer, in a dissertation entitled Radicis Rubiæ tinctorum effectus in Corpore Animali, Lips. 1751. Other works and observations relative to this singularity are mentioned in Haller’s Elementa Physiologiæ, v. p. 327.

277

That the Rubia colours the milk has been denied by many, who are mentioned in Haller’s Physiol. viii. p. 328. Young, in his Treatise De Lacte, says only that it has no effect on carnivorous animals. Being once engaged in making experiments on the madder dye, I gave the plant to a cow for several days, and I found that the milk became reddish and streaked with veins which were of a darker colour than the other parts. That well-known farmer, Gugenmus, gave the madder-plant, formed into hay, to his cows, who ate it readily. Their milk was somewhat reddish, and the butter and cheese acquired by these means in winter an agreeable colour. Perhaps the effects do not take place when the animals get other food at the same time. Or may not the state of their health occasion some difference? This much is certain, that Chelidonium (swallow-wort) makes the milk of cows that are weak appear bloody, while the same effect does not follow, or at least immediately, in those that are strong. Ruellius, De Natura Stirpium, Basiliæ, 1543, fol. p. 572, says of the Rubia, “Folia capillum tingunt.” If he meant that the hair became red by eating the leaves, he committed a mistake.

278

Dissertatio de Vita Nuptiisque Plantarum. Lipsiæ, 1741, p. 11.

279

I do not know that any one ever remarked human bones to have been dyed by madder, though the proposal for using the roots of it against the rachitis might have given occasion to make observations on that subject. See G. L. Hansen, Diss. de Rachitide. Gottingæ, 1762, p. 36. Professor Arnemann, who has a very numerous and valuable collection of skeletons, and who carefully examined many of the like kind during his travels, assured me that he never saw any bones that had been dyed by madder in the human body.

280

On Vegetable Substances, by the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge.

281

Essais, i. 54.

282

The juggler mentioned in Xenophon requested the gods to allow him to remain only in places where there was much money and abundance of simpletons.

283

Le Siècle de Louis XIV. Berlin, 1751, 12mo, i. p. 44. This horse was seen in the above-mentioned year by Casaubon, to whom the owner, an Englishman, discovered the whole art by which he had been trained. See Casauboniana, p. 56. We are assured by Jablonski, in his Lexicon der Künste und Wissenschaften, p. 547, that he was condemned to the flames at Lisbon. In the year 1739, a juggler in Poland was tortured till he confessed that he was a sorcerer, and without further proof he was hanged. The whole account of this circumstance may be found in the Schlesischen gelehrten Neuigkeiten for the year 1739.

284

See Luciani Opera, ed. Bipont. v. pp. 388, 407.

285

Florus, iii. 19, 4.

286

Directions for performing this trick may be found in various works, such as Joh. Wallbergen’s Zauberkünste, Stuttgard, 1754, 8vo, and Natürliches Zauberbuch, Nurnberg, 1740, 8vo.

287

See Bayle’s Diction. i. p. 450, art. Barchochebas.

288

Philostorgii Hist. Eccles. vii. 7, p. 93.

289

Vita Alexandri, p. 687.

290

Galen, l. c.

291

Ovid. Met. lib. ix. 160.

292

Instances may be found collected in Huetii Alnetanæ Quæstion. lib. ii. and in Bayle’s Dictionary, art. Egnatia.

293

Journal des Sçavans, 1667, pp. 54, 222; and 1680, p. 292. Deslandes, Mémoires de Physique, ii. and Bremenscher Magazin, i. p. 665. See also Busbequii Omnia, Basil, 1740, 8vo, p. 314.

294

[Deception might have been easily practised in this case. Fusible metal, as suggested by Sir David Brewster, Nat. Magic, p. 301, which consists of mercury, tin and bismuth, and which melts at a low temperature, might easily have been substituted in place of lead; and fluids, the boiling-point of which is lower than water, might easily have been substituted for that liquid.

A solution of spermaceti in sulphuric æther, tinged with alkanet root, which solidifies at 50° F., and melts and boils with the heat of the hand, is supposed to be the substance which is used at Naples, when the dried blood of St. Januarius melts spontaneously and boils over the vessel which contains it.

The experiments of M. Tillet, Dr. Fordyce and Sir Charles Blagden, will show the great heat which may be endured by the human body. Some of these gentlemen remained in a room where the heat was one or two degrees above 260° F. for eight minutes; a beaf-steak was cooked in the same atmosphere, and was overdone in thirty-three minutes; when the steak was blown upon with a pair of bellows, it was found to be pretty well done in thirteen minutes. But Sir F. Chantry exposed himself to a still greater heat in the furnace used for drying his moulds. When raised to its highest temperature, the thermometer indicated 350° F., and the iron floor was red-hot. The workmen often entered it at 340°. On one occasion Sir F., accompanied by five or six of his friends, entered the furnace, and after remaining two minutes, they brought out a thermometer which indicated 320°. Some of the party experienced sharp pains in the tips of their ears, and in the septum of the nose, whilst others felt a pain in their eyes. – Brewster, l. c.]

295

[The peculiar property of minerals and various salts, as alum, in forming and protecting articles of dress, &c. from the effects of fire, has long been known. But the art of practically applying it, is due to the ingenuity of the Chevalier Aldini of Milan. His dress consisted of a strong cloth covering which had been steeped in a solution of alum, for the body, arms and legs; whilst the head-dress was a large cap enveloping the whole head down to the neck, with holes for the nose, eyes and mouth; the covering for the feet was composed of asbestos, or amianthus cloth. The stockings and cap were single, but the gloves were double, to enable the fireman to take burning or red-hot bodies into his hands. A metallic dress was added to this, consisting of a cap, with a mask, leaving a space between it and the asbestos cap; a cuirass; a piece of armour for the trunk and thighs; a pair of boots of double wire-gauze; and an oval shield five feet long by two and a half wide, made by stretching the wire-gauze over a slender frame of iron. All these pieces were made of wire-gauze.

It was found, that when armed with this apparatus, a man could walk upon hot iron, in the midst of high flames, keep his head over a pan of flaming fire, &c. for several minutes, and this in some cases where the heat was so intense that bystanders were obliged to stand at the distance of eight or ten yards. This was remarkably shown in 1829, in the yard of the barracks of St. Jervais. Two towers were erected, two stories high, and were surrounded with heaps of inflamed faggots and straw. One of the firemen, with a child on his back, in a wicker basket covered with metallic gauze, and having a cap of amiantheric cloth, rushed into a narrow place, where the flames were raging eight yards high. The violence of the fire was so great that he could not be seen, while a thick black smoke spread around, throwing out a heat which was insupportable to the spectators. The man remained so long invisible that serious doubts were entertained of his safety. He at length, however, issued from the fiery gulf uninjured.]

296

The same thing was performed by Schreber in 1760.

297

Plin. vii. 11. – Virg. Æn. xi. – Silius Ital. v. – Strabo, v.

298

Strabo, xii.

299

In his work De Mirabilibus Mundi, at the end of his book De Secretis Mulierum, Amstelod. 1702, 12mo, p. 100.

300

Antigone, 270.

301

Animad. in Athen. lib. i. 15.

302

De Theatro, lib. i. 40, in Grævii Thes. Ant. Rom. ix.

303

Lib. iii. epist. 20. – Seneca, Epist. 45. Compare Suidas, Pollux, and Athenæi Deipn. 4. It is probable that Quintilian alludes to this art in his Institut. x. 7, 11.

304

Plin. vii. 20, p. 385. – Martial. v. 12. – Suidas, speaking of Theogenes Thasius. – Haller, Elem. Physiol. iv. p. 486.

305

Vopiscus, Vita Firmi. See the figure in Desaguliers, tab. xix. fig. 5. He describes the position thus: – The pretended Samson puts his shoulders (not his head, as he used to give out) upon one chair, and his heels upon another (the chairs being made fast), and supports one or two men standing on his belly, raising them up and down as he breathes, making with his backbone, thighs and legs, an arch whose abutments are the chairs.

306

A course of Experimental Philosophy. Lond. 1745, 4to, i. p. 266. [A popular account of these extraordinary feats, with illustrations and explanations of the principles on which they depend, is given by Sir David Brewster in his interesting volume on Natural Magic, p. 246.]

307

Versuche und Abhandl. der Naturforsch. Geselsch. in Danzig.

308

A great many of these passages of the ancients have been collected by Bulenger, in his work De Theatro, i. cap. 41. See also Des Camps in a dissertation contained in Recherches Curieuses d’Antiquité, par Spon. A Lyon 1683. – Mercurialis De Arte Gymnast. and Fabricii Biblioth. Antiq. p. 995.

309

An epigram, ascribed to Petronius, at page 542 of the edition of Hadrianides, belongs to this subject.

310

Muratori Antiquit. Ital. Med. Ævi, ii. p. 846.

311

Von Stetten, Kunstgeschichte von Augsburg, ii. p. 177.

312

Claudian. de Mallii Consul. 320. In Cilano’s Römischen Alterthümer, ii. fig. 8, there is a representation like what I have often seen exhibited. But the most dangerous and the most curious is that of which an engraving is given in Splendor Urbis Venetiarum, to be found in Grævii Thesaurus Antiquit. Italiæ, v. 3. p. 374.

313

Sat. xiv. 265.

314

Lib. v. 433.

315

Symposium, p. 655, edition of Basle, 1555. fol. Εἰσεφέρετο τῇ ὀρχηστρίδι τροχὸς τῶν κεραμεικῶν ἐφ’ οὗ ἔμελλε θαυμασιουργήσειν. In the old edition of J. Ribittus, this passage is thus translated: “Allata est saltatrici orbis saltatorius, in quo admiranda erat editura.” The first question that arises is, what was τροχὸς τῶν κεραμεικῶν. The last word alluded to a place at Athens where wrestling was exhibited every year; and on that account Aristophanes uses the expression πληγαὶ κεραμεικαί. This however affords no explanation. Bulenger, who quotes the same passage, translates it in the following manner: “Illata est saltatrici figularis rota, per quam se trajiceret, et miracula patraret.” He means here therefore a potter’s wheel, the invention of Anacharsis, but that was always called κεραμικὸς τροχὸς, and not τροχὸς τῶν κεραμεικῶν. But even allowing that a potter’s wheel is meant, it is wrong to add per quam se trajiceret; for the potter’s wheel is not like a hoop, but like a plate or dish; and when turned round revolves not vertically, but horizontally. Besides, how the performer could write or read on a wheel that she jumped through, he has not thought proper to explain. “Scribere et legere in rota dum versatur, mirabile quiddam est.” If a potter’s wheel be meant, I consider it as certainly possible for a person to stand upon it whilst it revolves with the greatest velocity, and even to read or write; but it would be necessary to lift up the legs, in turn, with the utmost quickness.

316

Nicephorus Gregor. viii. 10. p. 215. This company of rope-dancers came from Egypt. They travelled through the greater part of Asia, and all Europe, as far as the extremity of Spain. At Constantinople they extended the ropes, on which they first exhibited their art, between the masts of ships. One is almost induced to believe that stupid superstition did not then prevail so much in Europe as at the beginning of the last century. The historian says that the company at first consisted of forty persons; but that the half of them were cast away on their passage to Constantinople. He does not, however, tell us that they or their horses were anywhere burnt as conjurors, or possessed with the devil.

317

See the German translation of his Travels, ii. p. 238.

318

Journal du Règne de Henri III. p. 57. – Recueil de Pièces servant à l’Hist. de Henri III. Cologne, 1666, 12mo.

319

Epistolarum Selectarum Centuria. Antverpiæ, 1605, 4to, i. epist. 50. p. 59. – Plin. viii. 1 and 3. – Seneca, epist. 86. – Suetonii Vit. Galbæ. – Dio Cassius. A great many also may be found collected in Hartenfels Elephantographia, Erfordiæ, 1715, 4to. It appears that in the thirteenth century some ventured to ride a horse upon a rope. See the Chronicle Alberichi Monachi Trium-Fontium, inserted by Leibnitz in Accessiones Historicæ, vol. ii., where a description is given of the solemnities at the wedding of Robert, brother to the king of France, in the year 1237.

Several instances of the dexterity of the elephant may be found in Lipsii Laus Elephantis, inserted in Dissertat. Ludicrarum et Amœnitatum Scriptores varii, Lugd. Bat. 1638. – Trans.

320

Æliani Hist. An. xvi. 23. vi. 10. – Athenæus, lib. xii. – Plinius.

321

One instance may be found in Theophanis Chronographia, which was printed at Paris 1655, fol. It occurred in the seventeenth year of the reign of Justinian, or 543.

322

Universal Magazine, 1766, October, p. 217.

323

Der entlarvte Wildman, Betrüger grosser Höfe. Berlin, 1774, 8vo. See also Göttingische Gelehrte Anzeig. 1775, p. 816. The name of impostor given to Wildman was, however, too harsh; for I do not think that he who performs anything extraordinary, never done by any one before, becomes an impostor when another discovers his art.