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

770

Mullers Samlung Russischer Geschichte, vi. p. 491. Fischers Sibirische Geschichte. St. Petersb. 1768, 8vo, p. 290.

771

Du Cange, in his observations on Joinville, p. 137, thinks that the zebelinæ or sabelinæ pelles came from Zibel or Zibelet, a maritime town in Palestine, formerly called Biblium, because the skins were sent from it to Europe. This author meant Byblus, at present Gibelet or Gibeletto; but this derivation appears to me highly improbable.

772

Epigram. x. 37, 18.

773

Trier’s Wapen-Kunst, p. 62. – Gatterers Heraldik. p. 41.

774

Grauwerk veh or feh means properly a kind of fur, composed of that of the Siberian squirrel and the marten joined together. – Trans.

775

Antiquit. Ital. Medii Ævi, ii. p. 413.

776

See the passages quoted by Du Cange, and what Gesner has said in Histor. Animal. under the head Cuniculus.

777

Rapin’s England.

778

See this article in Du Cange and Hoffmann’s Lexicon.

779

Marco Polo.

780

Lib. ii. epist. 2.

781

Epig. 92: de birro castoreo.

782

De dignitate sacerdotali, cap. 5.

783

Lib. xvii. cap. 28. § 47; xxxii. cap. 9 and 10.

784

Lib. xix. cap. 27, p. 474.

785

Lib. xix. cap. 22.

786

Constantin. de Ceremoniis Aulæ Byzantinæ, i. p. 254: σκαραμάγγων καστώριον. The editor, Reiske, thinks that it may have been a pelisse, because Herodotus, iv. 109, speaks of the beaver’s skin being used for clothing. But how different must the old Sarmatian manners have been from the Byzantine!

787

Epist. 42.

788

Eginhartus, Vita Caroli Magni, cap. 23.

789

This anecdote is related by the monk of St. Gall, whose name is supposed to be Notker, in his book De Gestis Caroli Magni, ii. 27, printed in Bouquet, Historiens de la Gaule, v. p. 152. Whether Notker was the author of this chronicle or not, there can be no doubt that it was written after the year 883 and before 887, as has been proved by Basnage. Pavontalis vestis, a term used in this passage, does not always signify cloth wove or painted so as to resemble the colours of the peacock; the skin of the peacock was used for ornament; the people of all nations indeed decorated themselves with feathers till they became acquainted with dyeing. The art of those who prepared feathers was banished by that of the dyers.

790

Carmen De Carolo Magno, in Op. ii. p. 453, v. 225.

791

At the council of Aix-la-Chapelle in 817, where the dress of the monks was defined, it was ordered, “abbas provideat, unusquisque monachorum habeat … wantos in æstate, muffulas in hieme vervecinas.” See Sirmond’s Concil. Antiq. Galliæ, Paris, 1629, fol. i. p. 442. Wantus is still retained in the Netherlandish dialect, where want signifies a glove without fingers, having only a place for the thumb; perhaps it is the same word as want, wand, or gewand, which formerly denoted every kind of woollen cloth. Hence is derived the French word gand; for gwantus and gantus were formerly used instead of wantus. It is equally certain that muffula is of German extraction; mouw at present in Dutch signifies a sleeve. But at what time that covering came into use into which both hands are thrust at present to secure them from the frost, and which according to the size now fashionable covers the whole body and is called a muff, I am not able to determine.

792

Leges Wallicæ, ed. Wottoni. Londini, 1730, fol. p. 261.

793

Landulphus, lib. ii. c. 18, in Murat. Rer. Ital. Script., tom. iv.

794

Adam Bremensis in Lindenbrogii Script. Rer. Germ., p. 67.

795

Albertus Aquensis, in Gesta Dei per Francos, i. p. 203.

796

Ivo Carn. Epistolæ 104.

797

Canon 12.

798

Albertus Aquensis, in Gesta Dei per Francos, i. p. 321.

799

In Labbei Biblioth. Nova, tom. ii.

800

Wilhelmus Neubrigensis, lib. iii. cap. 22.

801

Wilhelmus de Nangis, p. 346. Gottfr. de Bello Loco, cap. 8. Joinville Hist. de St. Louis, p. 118.

802

Barrington’s Obs. on the more Ancient Statutes, 4to, p. 216.

803

Constantini lib. de Ceremoniis Aulæ Byzantinæ, 1754.

804

Giulini, Mem. della Città di Milano, vi. p. 407.

805

Ib. viii. p. 443.

806

In regard to the hardening of iron and the quenching of it in water, nothing, as far as I know, occurs in the Hebrew text of the Scriptures. The passages where it seems to be mentioned are, Isaiah, chap. xliv. ver. 12. “The smith bends the iron, works it in a fire of coals, and forms it with the hammer; he labours on it with a strong arm,” &c. according to the translation of Michaelis. It may indeed be translated otherwise, but it certainly alludes to the formation of an image of metal. The words, chap. liv. ver. 16, are still more general.Iron, barzel, often occurs, and in some passages indeed steel may be understood under this name; for example, in Ezekiel, chap. xxvii. ver. 19, ferrum fabrefactum, or, according to Michaelis and others, sabre blades from Usal (Sanaa in Yemen). A pretty clear indication of steel is given in Jeremiah, chap. xv. ver. 12: “Iron from the north,” which is described there as the hardest. To the north of Judæa was situated Chalybia, the ancient country of steel. It appears that the Hebrews had no particular name for steel, which they perhaps comprehended under the term barzel, or distinguished it only by the epithet Northern, especially as the later Jews have for it no other name than אסטמא, istoma, which however is nothing else than the Greek στόμωμα, and signifies rather steeling or hardening.

Chalamisch is certainly a hard kind of stone; granite or porphyry, according to Michaelis, who treats expressly of it in Supplem. ad Lex. Hebr. N. 740.

807

Scutum Herculis, x. 137.

808

Chap. xxi. ver. 11, 18, 19.

809

Lib. xxxiv. sect. 41. p. 666. “Stricturæ vocantur hæ omnes, quod non in aliis metallis a stringenda acie vocabulo imposito. Et fornacum maxima differentia est; nucleus quidem ferri excoquitur in his ad indurandam aciem; aliquæ modo ad densandas incudes, malleorumve rostra.” According to my opinion, stricturæ was the name given to pieces of steel completely manufactured and brought to that state which rendered them fit for commerce. At present steel comes from Biscay in cakes, from other places in bars, and both these formerly were called stricturæ, because they were employed chiefly for giving sharpness to instruments or tools, that is, for steeling them. In speaking of other metals, Pliny says that the finished productions at the works were not called stricturæ (this was the case, for example, with copper), though sharpness could be given to instruments with other metals also. The words of Pliny last quoted are read different ways, and still remain obscure. I conjecture that he meant to say that some steel works produced things which were entirely of steel, and that others were employed only in steeling. I shall here remark that the stricturæ ferri remind us of the strigiles auri: such was the name given to native pieces of gold, which without being smelted were used in commerce. – Plin. xxxiii. 3. p. 616.

810

See Vossii Etymol. and Martinii Lex. Philolog.

811

Institut. Chimiæ, p. 252. He refers to lib. xxxiii. cap. 4.

812

In my observations on Aristot. Auscult. Mirab. cap. 49.

813

Diod. lib. v. cap. 33.

814

Plut. de Garrul.

815

De Ferro, i. p. 194. See also Watson’s Chem. Essays, i. p. 220. Of the iron works in Japan I know nothing further than what has been said by Thunberg in his Travels. That country possesses very little of this metal: but the sabres made there are incomparable; without hurting the edge one can easily cut through a nail with them; and, as the Japanese say, cleave asunder a man at one blow. These sabres are often sold for fifty, seventy, and even a hundred dollars.

816

Lord Bacon seems not to have been of this opinion; see his Silva Silvarum, cent. i. § 86. But this method of hardening was usual in the eleventh or twelfth century; for it is described by Theophilus Presbyter, lib. iii. cap. 19.

817

Odyss. ix. 391.

818

Ajax, 720.

819

Exercitat. Plin. p. 763.

820

Lib. xxxiv. 14, p. 666.

821

Lib. xliv. p. 620.

822

[There can be no question that the hardening or tempering effect produced by the sudden immersion of heated steel in fluids has no relation to the quality of the fluid, save as regards its conducting power of heat. The more suddenly the heat is abstracted from the metal, the greater is the amount of hardness and brittleness. Mercury has been found superior to any other fluid for this purpose, undoubtedly because it is so good a conductor of heat.]

823

Le Vite de Pittori. Bologna, 1681, 4to, i. p. 11.

824

Some account of this artist is given in J. C. Bulengeri de Pictura, lib. ii. cap. 7, in Gronovii Thesaurus Antiq. Græc. ix. p. 875. On the other hand, Sturm says, in that part of the Ritterplatzes which relates to architecture, p. 18: “An archduke at Florence discovered again the art of working porphyry, but suffered it to die with him in the year 1556.”

825

Florillo Gesch. der Zeichnenden Künste, 8vo, i. p. 461.

826

Art de convertir le Fer en Acier, p. 245.

827

Stephanus de Urbibus, under the word Λακεδαίμων, p. 413.

828

Clemens Alexandr. in Pædagog. ii. p. 161, edit. Cologne, 1688, fol. says, speaking of luxury, “One can cut meat without having Indian iron.”

829

Philos. Transact. 1795, ii. p. 322.

830

[The manner in which iron ore is smelted and converted into wootz or Indian steel, by the natives at the present day, is probably the very same that was practised by them at the time of the invasion of Alexander; and it is a uniform process, from the Himalaya Mountains to Cape Comorin. The furnace or bloomery in which the ore is smelted, is from four to five feet high; it is somewhat pear-shaped, being about two feet wide at bottom and one foot at top; it is built entirely of clay, so that a couple of men may finish its erection in a few hours, and have it ready for use the next day. There is an opening in front about a foot or more in height, which is built up with clay at the commencement, and broken down at the end, of each smelting operation. The bellows are usually made of a goat’s skin, which has been stripped from the animal without ripping open the part covering the belly. The apertures at the legs are tied up, and a nozzle of bamboo is fastened in the opening formed by the neck. The orifice of the tail is enlarged and distended by two slips of bamboo. These are grasped in the hand, and kept close together in making the stroke for the blast; in the returning stroke they are separated to admit the air. By working a bellows of this kind with each hand, making alternate strokes, a tolerably uniform blast is produced. The bamboo nozzles of the bellows are inserted into tubes of clay, which pass into the furnace at the bottom corners of the temporary wall in front. The furnace is filled with charcoal, and a lighted coal being introduced before the nozzles, the mass in the interior is soon kindled. As soon as this is accomplished, a small portion of the ore, previously moistened with water, to prevent it from running through the charcoal, but without any flux whatever, is laid on the top of the coals, and covered with charcoal to fill up the furnace. In this manner ore and fuel are supplied, and the bellows are urged for three or four hours, when the process is stopped, and the temporary wall in front broken down; the bloom is removed with a pair of tongs from the bottom of the furnace. In converting the iron into steel, the natives cut it into pieces to enable it to pack better in the crucible, which is formed of refractory clay, mixed with a large quantity of charred husk of rice. It is seldom charged with more than a pound of iron, which is put in with a proper weight of dried wood, chopped small, and both are covered with one or two green leaves; the proportions being in general ten parts of iron to one of wood and leaves. The mouth of the crucible is then stopped with a handful of tempered clay, rammed in very closely, to exclude the air. As soon as the clay plugs of the crucibles are dry, from twenty to twenty-four of them are built up in the form of an arch in a small blast furnace; they are kept covered with charcoal, and subjected to heat urged by a blast for about two hours and a half, when the process is considered to be complete. The crucibles being now taken out of the furnace and allowed to cool, are broken, and the steel is found in the form of a cake, rounded by the bottom of the crucible. – Ure’s Dictionary of Arts and Manufactures, art. Steel.]

831

I shall refer those desirous of being acquainted with the nature of this labour, to Gatterer’s Anleitung den Harz zu bereisen. Göttingen, 1785, 8vo. i. p. 101. [Figures of the stamping-works may be seen in Ure’s Dictionary of Arts and Manufactures, pp. 818 and 1119.]

832

Diodor. iii. 13, p. 182.

833

Photii Bibl. p. 1342.

834

Hippocrates de Victus Rat. lib. i. sect. 4.

835

Plin. xxxiii. 4, sect. 21.

836

Gensane Traité de la Fonte des Mines. Par. 1770, i. p. 14.

837

Von d. goldgrabenden Ameisen u. Greiffen der Alten. Helmst. 1799. This dissertation may be found also in a valuable collection of different pieces by the same author, printed at Helmstadt, 1800.

838

See François Garrault, Des Mines d’Argent trouvées en France, Paris 1579, where mention is made only of mortars, mills and sieves. This Garrault is the first French writer on mining. His work, which is scarce, was printed by Gobet in the first part of the Anciens Minéralogistes de France, Paris 1779, 8vo.

839

At the Nertschinsk works in Siberia, the machinery must be still driven by men or cattle, because all the dams and sluices are destroyed by the frost, and the water converted into ice. Some of the works there however have machinery driven by water during the few summer months.

840

Sachs or sæx in old times denoted a cutting or stabbing instrument, such for example as schaar-sachs, a razor; schreib-sachs, a penknife. See Fritsch’s Wörterbuch, who derives sachs from secare. May not the word σάλαξ, which in Pollux means the sieve used at smelting-works, be of the same origin? I conjecture also that the coulter of the plough, which cuts the earth in a perpendicular direction, had the name of sech, and that the words säge and sichel have an affinity to it. If this derivation be right, the High but not the Low German must have of sachs made sech. The latter would have said sas or ses, as it says instead of sechs, ses; instead of wachs, was; instead of flachs, flas; and instead of fuchs, fos. Sech is named also kolter, as in the Netherlands kouter, which words have arisen no doubt from culter.

841

Calvör Maschinenwesen, ii. p. 74.

842

Anciens Minéral., i. p. 225.

843

[The very reverse of this is now generally admitted, and the prosperity of a country may be judged of from the amount of sugar consumed in it.]

844

Rumex patientia. Kerner, tab. 720.

845

Barbarea plantaginea. Kerner’s Œkonom. Pflanzen, tab. 562.

846

Smyrnium olusatrum. Kerner, 356.

847

Chærophyllum bulbosum. Kerner, tab. 299. Jacquin, Flora Austriaca, i. tab. 63.

848

Phyteuma spicata. Kerner, tab. 153.

849

The tuberous roots of the Lathyrus tuberosus. Kerner, tab. 328.

850

Columella. x. 109. Virgil, Moretum, 85.

851

Apuleius de Virtute Herbar. cap. 41. Plinius, xxv. 8.

852

Spec. Plantarum.

853

Du Cange.

854

Meursii Glossar. Anonymus de vulpe et lupo. In p. 657, he says that this poem was printed, but where we are not told.

855

See the passages quoted by Niclas in Geopon. v. 11. 3, p. 345.

856

Plin. xix. 8. sect. 41. The same species is mentioned by Columella, x. 138. But of red cabbage no account is found in any ancient author.

857

Columella, xii. 54. Pallad. Decem. 5. Nicander in Athenæus, iv.

858

Bellonii Obs. Itin. iii. 27.

859

Menage, Dict. v. Broccoli.

860

This is stated in Vincenzo Tanaro Economica del Cittadino in Villa. This book, written about the year 1642, was often printed; but I have never been so fortunate as to meet with a copy. The eleventh edition, being the latest, was printed at Venice in 1745, 4to. In Nonnii Diæteticon, p. 49, the first edition of which was printed in 1627, it is said that the seeds of cauliflower were brought from Italy to Antwerp, where no seed was raised, or such only as produced degenerate plants.

861

In Horti Germaniæ, at the end of Cordi Opera, p. 250, B.

862

Georgica Curiosa, Nurnberg, 1716, fol. i. p. 643.

863

Land- und Gartenschatz, p. 84.

864

See the ingenious experiments of Dalibert in Mémoires présentées sur les Mathématiques et la Physique, tom. i. Strong-smelling plants lose their smell in a sandy soil, and do not recover it when transplanted into a rich soil. On this Rozier founds his proposal for improving rape-oil.

865

Mehler, p. 16, tab. vi. – Kerner, tab. 312.

866

A good figure is given by Mehler, tab. viii.

867

See a figure of the Teltow rapes in Kerner, tab. 534.

868

Geopon. lib. ix. 18, p. 611. The oil of turpentine of the present day is obtained from the resin by distillation, a process with which the ancients were unacquainted.

869

Columella, ii. 10, 22–25; xi. 3, 60; xii. 54. – Plinius, xx. 4; and xix. 10 and 5. That I may not be too prolix, I shall leave the confusion which occurs in the works of the ancients untouched.

870

See the figure of the Mayrübe in Kerner, tab. 553; of the Guckelrübe, tab. 516; and Mehler’s tab. vii. (or 37.)

871

De Re Rustica, lib. ii. cap. 10.

872

Hist. Nat. lib. xviii. c. 13; lib. xix. c. 5.

873

Tull’s Horse-Hoeing Husbandry.

874

Gard. Magaz.

875

Lib. Entert. Knowledge, Vegetable Substances.

876

Kerner’s Œkonom. Pflanzen, tab. 319. – Mehler, tab. x. (or 40.)

877

De Aliment. Facult. ii. 67. Galen has ἡ καρὼ, not κάρος.

878

Kerner, tab. 91.

879

Matthioli Epist. Med. v. p. 209; in Opera, Basil. 1674, fol.

880

A translation, printed for the first time in Spanish in 1569, is in Clusii Exotica, p. 15.

881

Murray, Apparat. Med. i. p. 160.

882

Kerner, tab. 307.

883

Cepæ fissiles, or scissiles, or schistæ, are leeks, as Theophrastus tells us himself, which, when the leaves become yellow, are taken from the earth, and being freed from the leaves, are separated from each other, then dried, and in spring again put into the ground. If we believe that the ascaloniæ can be propagated only by seed, we must certainly read in Theophrastus μόνα γἀρ οὐ σχιστὰ, as Scaliger has already remarked.

884

Vol. i. p. 17.

885

[It is scarcely necessary to inform the reader that the warp consists of the longitudinal threads of a woven fabric, which are crossed by the transverse threads or woof.]

886

Ovidii Metamorph. vi. 5–145. Plin. Hist. Nat. vii. 56.

887

An Englishman, named J. W. Boswel, invented a machine on which sixty-eight meshes, with perfect knots, could be knit at the same time: it could be adapted also to fine works, and to lace. A description of it may be seen in the Transactions of the Society for the Encouragement of the Arts, vol. xiv.

888

Many commentators on the Greek and Roman writers have fallen into mistakes respecting these noose-ropes, because they were not acquainted with the nature of them. Their use among the Parthians is confirmed by Suidas, under the word σειραὶ, p. 303; where he says that on that account they were called σειροφόροι. Josephus asserts that they were employed by the Alani, and relates that Tiridates would have been caught in this manner, had he not quickly cut to pieces the rope. Under the same head may be comprehended the retiarii and laquearii, in the bloody spectacles of the Romans, whose method of fighting is said to have been found out by Pittacus. See Diogen. Laert. i. 74. To this subject belong the snares of the devil, pestilence, and death, in the Scriptures, and particularly in Psalm xviii. ver. 5. The laquei mortis of Horace, Carm. iii. 24, 8, were hence to be explained, and not by a Hebraism, as some of the old commentators have imagined. In the ordeals of the ancient Germans, when a man was obliged to combat with a woman, the latter had a rope with a noose, which she threw over her antagonist, who stood in a pit, in order that she might more easily overcome him. That such ropes are still employed among various nations is proved by Vancouver. In Hungary the wild horses at present are said to be caught by ropes of this kind.