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

523

Supplementa in Lexica Hebraica p. 151.

524

The authors here quoted, corresponding to the above letters, are as follows: —

a Plinius, xxxiv. 16, p. 668.

b Cæsar De Bello Gallico, v. 12.

c Aristot. Auscult. Mirab. cap. 51, p. 100.

d Galenus De Antidot. i. 8. p. 209. ed. gr. Basil. vol. ii. p. 431.

e Plin. iv. 22. p. 630.

f Herodot. lib. iii. p. 254. edit. Wess.

g Plin. iv. 16, p. 223.

h Strabo, lib. iii. p. 219. ed. Almel.

i Strabo, lib. xv. p. 1055.

j Diodor. Sic. lib. v. p. 347. ed. Wess.

k Diod. Sic. lib. v. p. 361.

l Stephan. Byzant. v. Tartessus, p. 639.

m Dionys. Periegesis, v. 563.

n Prisciani Perieg. v. 575.

o Avienus Descript. Urbis, v. 743.

p Homeri Iliad. xviii. 612.

q Iliad. xi. 25.

r Iliad. xxiii. 561.

s Iliad. xviii. 565, 574.

t Hesiod. Scut. Herculis, v. 208.

u Aristot. Œconom. lib. ii. p. 594.

v Pollux Onomast. p. 1055.

w Pomp. Mela, iii. 6, 24, p. 275.

x Plin. xxxiii. 5, p. 621.

y Plin. xxxiv. 17, § 48, p. 669; and lib. xxxiii. § 45: Optima specula apud majores fuerant Brundisiana stanno et ære mixtis. From a similar mixture the best metallic specula are cast at present.

525

Borlase’s Antiquities of Cornwall. Ox. 1754, fol. p. 29.

526

Lib. iv. cap. 22, p. 230.

527

Minéralogie Homerique, Par. 1790, 8vo. A small treatise much esteemed.

528

Lib. xi. 24, 25.

529

See what I have already said, vol. i. p. 472.

530

Savot, p. 53. – Watson’s Chemical Essays, iv. p. 187.

531

Schefferi Lapponia, Francof. 1673, 4to, pp. 210, 261, where a figure is given of a Lapland woman drawing threads.

532

Phil. Trans. 1702, 1703, vol. xxiii. p. 1129.

533

Phil. Trans. 1759, vol. li. p. 13, where figures of the vessels are given. Whitaker’s Hist. of Manchester, i. p. 306.

534

Borlase’s Cornwall, p. 30; and his Observations on the Islands of Scilly. Oxf. 1756, 4to.

535

Natural Hist. of Cornwall, p. 177.

536

In the Antiquities of Cornwall, p. 394: Ik, yk, ick, a common termination of creeks in Cornwall, as Pordinik, Pradnik.

537

Dionysii Orbis Descriptio. Londini, 1679, 8vo, p. 220, where Hill’s observations deserve to be read.

538

Voyages de Chardin. Rouen, 1723, 12mo, iv. 65, where it is expressly said that Persia has no tin, but that it obtains it from India. The same thing is confirmed by Tavernier.

539

Fortunati Opera. Romæ, 1786, 4to, i. p. 14, lib. i. cap. 8.

540

Proofs may be found in Dufresne.

541

Wencesl. Hagec Böhmische Chronik. Nürnb. 1697, fol. p. 53.

542

For example, Borlase in Natur. Hist. – Speed’s Theatre of Great Britain. – Camden’s Britannia. – Anderson’s Hist. of Commerce, &c.

543

This metal, however, must have remained long dear; for it is remarked in the Archæologia, vol. iii. p. 154, from an expense-book of the Earls of Northumberland, that vessels of tin, about the year 1500, in consequence of their dearness, had not become common. This is confirmed also by a regulation respecting the household of Henry VIII., printed also in the Archæologia, where it is said, “Officers of the squillery to see all the vessels, as well silver as pewter, be kept and saved from stealing.”

544

C. Bruschii redivivi Beschreib. des Fichtelberges. Nürnb. 1683.

545

See Gegenwärtiger Staat von England, Portugal, und Spanien (by Theodore King of Corsica), ii. p. 25.

546

Narrisch Weisheit, p. 51.

547

Yarranton’s England’s Improvement by Sea and Land, 1698.

548

Watson’s Chem. Essays, iv. p. 203. – Anderson’s Commerce.

549

This is related by Diderot in his article Fer-blanc in the Encyclopédie. That the Fer-blanc of the French is tin plate every one knows; but what are we to understand by ferrum candidum, a hundred talents of which were given as a present to Alexander in India? No commentator has noticed this appellation. In the index, however, to Snakenburg’s Curtius, I find the conjecture that it may mean the ferrum Indicum, which, lib. xvi. § 7. ff de Publicanis, or Digest. xxxix. 4, § 16, 7, is named among the articles liable to pay duty; but some editions in this passage have ebenum Indicum. The reader is referred also to Photii Biblioth. p. 145, where Ctesias relates a fable in regard to Indian iron. Pliny, xxxiv. 14, p. 667, mentions ferrum Sericum, which in his time was considered as the best; but still it may be asked, why is the epithet white applied in particular to the Indian iron? Compare Aristot. de Mirab. Auscult. pp. 96, 426.

550

Ramusio, fol. i. p. 166. c.

551

Ib. i. p. m. 317. d.

552

The title is, Beschreibung eines neuen Instruments mit welchem das Getraide zugleich geackert und gesäet werden kan; erfunden von Locatelli, Landmann im Erz-Herzogthum Cärndten. Anno 1603. Without the name of any place, printer, or publisher.

553

Phil. Trans. vol. v. No. 60, p. 1056.

554

Paris, 1753, 12mo, i. p. 368, tab. 6. Duhamel has committed a double error. He speaks of the invention as if the first experiments were made in Spain, and as if those in Austria had been later. He says also, that the latter were made dans le Luxembourg in Istria. The English account also says erroneously Luxembourg, instead of Lachsenburg or Laxemburg, which is in Austria, and not in Istria.

555

Of Segni an account may be found in Notizie degli Scrittori Bolognesi raccolte da Giovanni Fantuzzi. In Bologna 1784–1794, 9 vols. 4to, vii. p. 377. Segni, who died in 1610, wrote a great many ascetic books, the names of which are there given.

556

Dell’ agricultura, dell’ arti e del commercio. Lettere di Antonio Zanon. In Venezia 1764, 8vo, vol. iii. p. 325.

557

Prodromo, overo saggio di alcune inventioni nuove, premesso all’ arte maestra. In Brescia 1670, fol. p. 96, fig. 26.

558

See the excellent account of the agriculture in Suffolk in my Journal, the Beytragen zur Oekonomie, &c., i. p. 1. It was written by M. F. Wild, of Durlach, who in the year 1767 was one of my pupils, and afterwards became teacher in the Institute of Education at Colmar. But alas! I do not know whither he has now been swept by the vortex of the revolution.

559

Leske Reise durch Sachsen. Leipzig, 1785, 4to, p. 319.

560

Sylva Sylvarum, cent. 5, § 442.

561

[The word manganese, strictly speaking, designates the metal itself, the peroxide of which is understood by the author whenever the word manganese occurs in the text.]

562

Lib. xxxvi. 26, § 25. – See Hambergeri Vitri Historia, in Comment. Societ. Götting. tom. iv. anni 1754, p. 487.

563

Under this appellation, writers on the art of glass-making understand a mixture of sand or siliceous earth and alkaline salts, which at the German glass-houses, where the above word is seldom heard, is called Einsatz. It appears to have been brought to us, along with the art, from Italy, where it is written at present fritta, and to be derived from fritto, which signifies something broiled or roasted. It seems to be the same word as freton, which occurs in Thomas Norton’s Poem, Crede mihi, sive Ordinale, where it however signifies a particular kind of solid glass, fused together from small fragments. This Englishman lived about the year 1477. His treatise was several times printed.

564

[The action of peroxide of manganese (the only compound of the metal used in the manufacture of glass) is simple and clearly understood. The sand (silica) used in the manufacture of glass frequently contains iron, which by the heat necessary for the fusion of the glass becomes reduced to the state of protoxide, giving the glass a greenish or yellowish colour; also, if any organic substance be present in the materials (and where sulphate of soda is used, charcoal is added), the glass is not colourless. When peroxide of manganese is added, it parts with some of its oxygen, becoming reduced to the protoxide, which remains colourless in the glass, the protoxide of iron absorbing the oxygen, becomes at the same time converted into the peroxide, which also imparts no colour to the glass, which is thus rendered colourless. If more of the peroxide of manganese be added than the carbon or protoxide of iron can reduce, it will tinge the glass of an amethyst colour, as stated in the text.]

565

See the History of Ruby-glass in vol. i. p. 123.

566

Plin. xxxvi. 26, p. 759, and lib. xxxvii. cap. 6, p. 769; he says that artists could make glass vessels nearly similar to those of rock crystal; but he remarks that the latter had nevertheless risen in price.

567

Lib. xxxvii. 24, § 66.

568

Plin. xxxvi. 8, § 13, p. 735.

569

Speculum Lapidum, Parisiis, 1610, 8vo, p. 71. It may not be superfluous here to remark, that this Alabandicus of Pliny must not, as is often the case, be confounded with the precious stone to which he gives the same name, lib. xxxvii. cap. 8. The name properly denotes only a stone from Alabanda in Caria. It occurs, but much corrupted, as the name of a costly stone, in writings of the middle ages. See in Du Cange Alamandinæ, Alavandinæ, Almandinæ; and even in our period so fertile in names, a stone which is sometimes classed with the ruby and sometimes with the garnet, and which is sometimes said to have an affinity to the topaz and hyacinth, is called Alamandine and Alabandiken. See Brückman on Precious Stones, who in the second continuation, p. 64, deduces the word from Allemands, without recollecting the proper derivation, which he gives himself, i. p. 89 according to Pliny.

570

Canon Medicinæ, lib. ii. tract. 2, cap. 470, de Magnete; and cap. 472, de Magnesia.

571

In his book De Mineralibus, lib. ii. tract. 2, cap. 11.

572

Stirpium et Fossilium Silesiæ Catalogus, Lipsiæ, 1600, 4to, p. 381.

573

It is not always necessary that the water should be cold; these drops will be formed also in warm water, as well as in every other fluid, and even in melted wax. See Redi’s experiments in Miscellan. Naturæ Curios. anni secundi, 1671, p. 426. They succeed best with green glass, yet I have in my possession some of white glass, which in friability are not inferior to those of green.

574

The navel, in German nabel, is that piece of glass which remains adhering to the pipe when any article has been blown, and which the workman must rub off. These navels, however, are seldom in so fluid a state as to form drops.

575

Journal des Voyages de M. Monconys, Lyon, 1666, 4to, ii. p. 162.

576

Commentarius de rebus ad eum pertinentibus, Lips. 1719.

577

Historia Naturalis. Edit. secunda, Londini 1680, 4to, p. 37.

578

In his Observations on Neri Ars Vitraria, Amstel. 1668, 12mo.

579

This is said, for example, by Grainger in his Biographical History of England. London, 1769, vol. ii. part 2, p. 407.

580

This book was only once printed, but the title-page has the date 1667. See Biographia Britannica, iv. p. 2654.

581

Doppelmayer, p. 276.

582

Lib. x. cap. 12, p. 347. Compare lib. ix. cap. 9. p. 321.

583

In that book entitled Πνευματικὰ, or Spiritualia. It may be found Greek and Latin in Veterum Mathematicorum Opera, Parisiis 1693, fol. p. 180.

584

Epist. 42, lib. x.

585

Lib. v. edit. Almel. p. 360.

586

Plin. lib. v. cap. ult.

587

Poliorcetica, p. 32, in Veterum Mathematicorum Opera.

588

Orig. xx. 6. Fire-engines are used in many towns to wash the windows in the upper stories, which cannot be taken out.

589

See Digest. i. tit. 15, where all persons are ordered to have water always ready in their houses. Also Digest. 47, tit. 9. Many things relating to this subject may be found in L. A. Hambergeri Opuscula, Jenæ et Lips. 1740, 8vo, p. 12; in the Dissertation de Incendiis. Further information respecting the police establishment of the Romans in regard to fires, is contained in two dissertations, entitled G. C. Marquarti de Cura Romanorum circa Incendia. Lips. 1689, 4to. And Ev. Ottonis Dissertat de Officio Præfecti Vigilum circa Incendia. Ultrajecti 1733.

590

Digest. xxxiii. 7, 18. Dier. Genial. v. 24.

591

Controvers. 9, libri ii.

592

In Germany also the roads and the distance between the ruts made by cart-wheels were in old times very narrow. Some years ago, when the new tile-kiln was built before the Geismar gate at Göttingen, there was found at a great depth, a proof of its antiquity, a street or road which had formerly proceeded to the city with so small a space marked out by carriage-wheels, that one like it is not to be seen in Germany.

593

Lib. ii. cap. 8.

594

Hanovii Disquisitiones. Gedani 1750, 4to, p. 65.

595

Annæ Comnenæ Alexiad. lib. 16. p. 385; πῦρ ὑγρόν.

596

A projectile machine of this kind is mentioned by Joinville, p. 39.

597

See the passage of Anna Comnena quoted by Hanov. p. 335.

598

In Leonis Allatii Σύμμικτα. Colon. 1653, 8vo, p. 239.

599

Cap. 19, § 6, p. 322.

600

Pp. 344, 346.

601

Thus in the year 1466 straw thatch, and in 1474 the use of shingles were forbidden at Frankfort. – Lersner, ii. p. 22.

602

Doppelmayer says that the water was driven to the height of a hundred feet.

603

Doppelmayer, p. 303.

604

Contin. du Traite de la Police, par De la Mare, p. 137.

605

Mathematik zum Nutzen und Vergnügen, 8vo, p. 396.

606

Lib. x. cap. 12.

607

Spiritualia, 36, p. 35.

608

Vol. i. p. 120, tab. 45, fig. 2.

609

In the patent, however, they were named Jan and Nicholas van der Heyden.

610

Beschryving der nieuwliiks uitgevonden Slang-Brand-Spuiten, Jan van der Heide, Amst. 1690, folio.

611

Poliorcet. page 32.

612

Leipziger Intelligenzblatt, 1775, p. 345; and 1767, p. 69. Teutscher Merkur, 1783.

613

Lysons’s Environs of London.

614

Vestitus Sacerdotum Hebræorum. Amst. 1701, 4to, i. p. 273. Much useful information in regard to various improvements in the apparatus for extinguishing fires may be found in Aug. Niemann Uebersicht der Sicherungsmittel gegen Feuersgefahren. Hamb. und Kiel, 1796, 8vo.

615

Dioscor. lib. v. cap. 107, p. 366. Περὶ Ἰνδικοῦ.

616

Plin. lib. xxxv. cap. 6, § 27, p. 688; and Isidorus, Origin. lib. xix. cap. 7, p. 464.

617

Foesii Œconomia Hippocratis. Francof. 1588, fol. p. 281.

618

Ἔγχυλον means also juicy, or something that has a taste. Neither of these significations is applicable here, where the subject relates to a substance which is dry and insipid, or at any rate which can possess only a small degree of astringency. It must in this place denote an inspissated or dried juice; but I can find no other passage to support this meaning.

619

In Pliny’s time people coloured a white earth with indigo, or only with woad, vitrum, in the same manner as coarse lakes and crayons are made at present, and sold it for indigo. One of them he calls annularia, and this was one of the sealing earths, of which I have already spoken in the first volume. In my opinion it is the same white pigment which Pliny immediately after calls annulare: “Annulare quod vocant, candidum est, quo muliebres picturæ illuminantur.” These words I find nowhere explained, and therefore I shall hazard a conjecture. Pliny, I think, meant to say that “this was the beautiful white with which the ladies painted or ornamented themselves.”

620

Plin. lib. xxxv. § 12, p. 684. – Vitruv. lib. vii. cap. 14.

621

Tavernier, ii. p. 112. We are told so in Malta Vetus et Nova a Burchardo Niederstedt adornata. Helmest. 1659, fol. lib. iv. cap. 6, a work inserted in Grævii Thesaurus Ital. vi. p. 3007. This man brought home with him to Germany, after his travels, a great many Persian manuscripts, which were purchased for the king’s library at Berlin. Niederstedt, however, is not the only person who speaks of indigo being cultivated in Malta. Bartholin, Epist. Med. cent. i. ep. 53, p. 224, says the same.

622

It is entirely different from the molybdate of tin, the laborious preparation of which is described by J. B. Richter in his Chemie, part ii. p. 97.

623

It deserves to be remarked, that the Greek dyers, speaking of a fermenting dye-pan covered with scum, used to say, like our dyers, that it had its flower, ἐπάνθισμον. In Hippocrates the words ἐπάνθισμα ἀφρῶδες denote a scum which arises on the surface. Among the Latins flos in this sense is very common.

624

Caneparius de Atramentis, Rot. 1718, 4to, v. 2. 17. – Valentini Museum Museor. i. p. 225. – Pomet, i. p. 192.

625

See his edition of Dioscorides, Colon. 1529, fol. p. 667.

626

Lib. xxxvii. 10. sect. 61, p. 791.

627

Lib. xxxv. cap. 6.

628

Perfici is a term of art which is often used to express the finishing or last labour bestowed upon any article: Vasa sole perficiuntur. When vessels of earthen-ware have been formed, they must be suffered to dry and become hard in the sun. See Hardouin’s index to Pliny.

629

Gum and gummy substances of every kind used to make ink thicker and give it more body, were called ferrumen. See Petronius, cap. 102, 15.

630

Vitruv. vii. 10, p. 246.

631

Lib. xxxv. cap. 7.

632

Exercitat. Plin. p. 816, b. And in the Annotationes in Flavium Vopiscum, p. 398, in Historiæ Augustæ;, Paris, 1620, fol.

633

De Composit. Pharmac. secundum locos, lib. iv. cap. 4. Edit. Gesn. Class. v. p. 304.

634

Lib. iv. cap. 7.

635

Salmasii Exercitat. Plin. p. 908, a.

636

Pauli Æginetæ libri vii. Basiliæ, 1538, fol. p. 246, lib. vii.

637

Parabilium lib. i. 161, p. 43.

638

Salmasius in Homonymis Hyl. Iatr. p. 177, a; and in Exercitat. Plin. p. 810, b; and p. 936, b. In regard to the manuscripts of the work of Zosimus, which is commonly called Panopolita, see Fabricii Bibl. Græca, vol. vi. pp. 612, 613; and vol. xii. pp. 748, 761. I wish I may be so fortunate as to outlive the publication of it; it will certainly throw much light on the history of the arts. It is remarkable that Zosimus calls indigo-dyers λαχωταὶ and ἰνδικοβάφοι, in order perhaps to distinguish them from the dyers with woad. The distinction therefore between indigo-dyers and those who dyed with woad must be very old.

639

In the edition of some Arabian physicians, published by Brunfels, at Strasburg, 1531, fol.

640

Avicennæ Canon. Med… Venet. 1608, fol. ii. p. 237.

641

Antiquitates Italiæ Medii Ævi, ii. p. 894.

642

Lib. iii. cap. 31, p. 150.

643

Lisbona e Lucca, 1766, 4to.

644

Ramusio Viaggi, 1613, i. p. 342.

645

Geschichte der Farberkunst. Stendal, 1780, 8vo, p. 69.

646

Anleitung zur Technologie, fourth edit. p. 123. I can now add, that Roso, in Memorie della Societa Italiana, Verona, 1794, 4to, vii. p. 251, quotes also the edition per Francesco Rampazetto, 1540, 4to.

647

Itinerarium Benjaminis, Lugd. Bat. 1633, 8vo.

648

Du Cange quotes a diploma of the emperor Frederick II., dated 1210, and under the word Tintoria, a diploma of Charles II. king of Sicily.

649

Ramusio, i. p. 323.

650

Totius Belgii Descript. Amst. 1660, 12mo, i. p. 242.

651

[They both belong to the same genus but are specifically distinct, the species cultivated in India being principally the Indigofera tinctoria, and that in America the Indigofera anil.]

652

This work has been several times printed. It is also in Barcia Historiadores primitivos de las Indias Occidentales. Madrid, 1749, fol. vol. i. At p. 61, we find among the productions of the above island, minas de cobre, anil, ambar, &c. An English translation in Churchill’s Collection, ii. p. 621, renders these words mines of copper, azure, and amber.

653

Encyclop. vol. xxix. p. 548.

654

His works may be found in Barcia’s Collection, vol. ii.

655

All these prohibitions may be found in Schreber’s Beschreibung des Waidtes. Halle, 1752, 4to, in the appendix, pp. 1, 2.

656

Schreber ut supra, p. 11.

657

See Mémoires de l’Acad. à Paris, année 1740.