part 2

, p. 345, where there is much valuable information respecting the German artists. Compare also Doppelmayer’s Nachricht von Nürnberg. Künstlern.

[209] Oculus Artificial. iii. p. 79.

[210] Lib. xxxvii.

[211] Cap. 52, p. 59.

[212] Origin. xvi. 8.

[213] De Miner. lib. ii. 2.

[214] Traité des Pierres gravées, i. pp. 90, 156.

[215] Ibid. p. 156.

[216] In the preface, p. 15.

[217] Ueber den Nutzen d. geschnitt. Steine. Altenb. 1768, p. 42.

[218] Le Veil, iii. p. 19. This anecdote however is not mentioned by Mezeray, Castelnau, or Laboureur; and Bayle must have been unacquainted with it, or he would have introduced it into his long article on the Duchesse d’Estampes.

[219] Doppelmayer, p. 232.

[220] Abhandlungen der Schwed. Akad. xxxiii. p. 122.

[221] Halle, Fortgesetzte Magie. Berlin, 1788, 8vo, i. p. 516. This author says that the invention came from England, where it was kept very secret; but the honour of the second invention belongs to H. Klaproth.

[222] Schwanhard, by the acuteness of his genius, proved what was before considered as impossible, and found out a corrosive so powerful that the hardest crystal glass, which had hitherto withstood the force of the strongest spirits, was obliged to yield to it, as well as metals and stones. By these means he delineated and etched on glass, figures of men, some naked and some dressed, and all kinds of animals, flowers, and plants, in a manner perfectly natural; and brought them into the highest estimation.--Sandrart, Teutsche Akademie, i. 2, p. 346.--Doppelmayer, p. 250, says, “After 1670 he accidentally found out by the glass of his spectacles, upon which some aquafortis had fallen, becoming quite soft, the art of etching on glass.”

[223] Breslauer Sammlung zur Natur- und Medicin-Geschichte. 1725, January, p. 107. “Invention of a powerful acid by which figures of every kind, according to fancy, can be etched upon glass.--When _spiritus nitri per distillationem_ has passed into the recipient, ply it with a strong fire, and when well dephlegmated, pour it, as it corrodes ordinary glass, into a Waldenburg flask; then throw into it a pulverised green Bohemian emerald, otherwise called _hesphorus_ (which, when reduced to powder and heated, emits in the dark a green light), and place it in warm sand for twenty-four hours. Take a piece of glass well cleaned and freed from all grease by means of a lye; put a border of wax round it, about an inch in height, and cover it all equally over with the above acid. The longer you let it stand the better, and at the end of some time the glass will be corroded, and the figures, which have been traced out with sulphur and varnish, will appear as if raised above the plane of the glass.” This receipt has been inserted by H. Krunitz in his Œkonomische Encyclopedie, xi. p. 678.

[224] Klindworth covers the glass with the etching ground of the engravers; but in the Annals of Chemistry for 1790, ii. p. 141, a solution of isinglass in water, or a turpentine oil varnish, mixed with a little white lead, is recommended. Complete instructions for acquiring this art may be found there also.

[225] De Lapidibus, sect. 19.

[226] See Ephemerid. ac Nat. Cur. 1676, Dec. 1, obs. 13, p. 32; and Elsholtii De Phosphoris Observationes, Berol. 1681, 4to.

[227] G. C. Kirchmaieri De Phosphoris et Natura Lucis, necnon de Igne, Commentatio Epistolica. Wittebergæ, 1680, 4to.

[228] Miscellanea Berolin. 1710, vol. i. p. 97. The fluor-spar earth, or phosphoric earth, as it is called, which in later times has been found in marble quarries, and which some at present consider as an earth saturated with phosphoric acid, is mentioned by the Swede Hierne, in Prodromus Hist. Nat. Sueciæ. Henkel had never seen it.

[229] Watson’s Chemical Essays, ii. p. 277.

[230] Descriptive Catalogue of Tassie’s Engraved Gems, Lond. 1791, 2 vols. 4to, i. p. 51.

SOAP.

That the first express mention of soap occurs in Pliny and Galen, and that the former declares it to be an invention of the Gauls, though he prefers the German to the Gallic soap[231], has already been remarked by many. Pliny says that soap[232] was made of tallow and ashes; that the best was made of goats’ tallow and the ashes of the beech-tree, and that there were two kinds of it, hard and soft. The author of a work on simple medicines, which is ascribed to Galen, but which however does not seem to have been written by that author, and of which only a Latin translation has been printed, speaks of soap being made by a mixture of oxen, goats’, or sheep’s tallow, and a lye of ashes strengthened with quicklime. He says the German soap was the purest, the fattest, and the best, and that the next in quality was the Gallic[233]. This account corresponds more exactly with the process used in Germany at present; whereas the French use mineral alkali, and instead of tallow, employ oil, which appears to be a later invention. Pliny in his description does not speak of quicklime; but as he mentions a mixture of goats’ tallow and quicklime a little before, it is probable that the use of the latter was then known at Rome. Gallic and German soap are often mentioned by later writers[234], as well as by the Arabians, sometimes on account of their external use as a medicine, and sometimes on account of their use in washing clothes. The latter purpose is that for which soap is principally employed in modern times; but it does not seem to have been the cause of German soap being introduced at Rome. Washing there was the occupation of indigent scourers, who did not give themselves much trouble concerning foreign commodities. The German soap, with which, as Pliny tells us, the Germans coloured their hair red, was imported to Rome for the use of the fashionable Roman ladies and their gallants. There is no doubt that the _pilæ Mattiacæ_, which Martial recommends as a preventive of gray hair[235]; the _caustica spuma_ with which the Germans dyed their hair[236]; and the Batavian froth or lather which the Romans employed for colouring theirs[237], were German soap. It is probable that the Germans tinged it with those plants which were sent to Rome for dyeing the hair[238]; and according to the modern manner of speaking, it was more properly a kind of pomade than soap.

It appears that the Romans at first considered hair-soap as an ointment made from ashes; for we read in various passages of ancient authors, that the hair was dyed by means of ashes, or an ointment made of ashes and a certain kind of oil. It is however possible that they may have had such an ointment, which undoubtedly would be of a saponaceous nature, before they were acquainted with the German soap, or that they imitated the German pomade with different variations[239].

As soap is everywhere used for washing at present, a question arises what substitutes were employed before it was invented. Those with which I am acquainted I shall mention and endeavour to illustrate. They are all still used, though not in general; and they are all of a soapy nature, or at least have the same effects as soap; so that we may say the ancients used soap without knowing it.

Our soap is produced by a mixture of lixivious salts and tallow, by which means the latter becomes soluble in water. The greater part of the dirt on our linen and clothes consists of oily perspiration or grease, or dust which that grease attracts, and which either cannot be washed out, or, but very imperfectly, by water alone. But if warm water, to which lixivious salts have in any manner been added, be taken, and if dirty cloth be rubbed in it, the greasy dirt unites with the salts, becomes saponaceous, and is so far soluble in water that it may be washed out. There are also natural juices which are of a soapy quality, in the state in which we find them, and which can be employed in the stead of artificial soap. Of this kind is the gall of animals and the sap of many plants. The former being less strong in its effects on account of its slimy nature, is used at present particularly for coloured stuffs, the dye of which is apt to fade. As far as I know, however, it was not employed by the ancients[240], but it is certain that in washing they used saponaceous plants.

In the remotest periods it appears that clothes were cleaned by being rubbed or stamped upon in water, without the addition of any substance whatever. We are told by Homer, that Nausicaa and her attendants washed their clothes by treading upon them with their feet in pits, into which they had collected water[241]. The epithet black, which the poet gives to the water, might induce one to conjecture that it had been mixed with ashes, which would convert it into a lye; but where were the ashes to be found? Had they brought them along with them, the bard, where he before enumerates everything that they carried with them, and even oil, would not have failed to mention them; and such a conjecture is rendered entirely groundless by his applying the same epithet to pure water, in other places, where nothing can be supposed to have coloured it[242]. Water, when it stands in deep pits, reflects so few rays of light, that in a poetical sense it may very properly be called black.

We find however mention made at later periods of ashes, and a lye of ashes employed for washing; but I think very seldom, and I do not know how old the use of them may be. According to Julius Pollux, _konia_, mentioned by Aristophanes and Plato, was a substance used for washing; and he says expressly, that we are to understand by it a lye of ashes. This I mention for the sake of those, who, like me, place little confidence in the terms of art given in dictionaries. With the above lye, oil- and wine-jars were cleaned[243]; and it was employed also for washing the images of the gods[244]. The method of strengthening the lye by means of unslaked lime was known, at any rate, in the time of Paulus Ægineta; but it appears that the Romans were not acquainted with the salt itself, which is procured by dissolving common wood-ashes in water: I mean, they did not understand the art of producing it in a dry solid form, or of boiling potashes.

On the other hand, that fixed lixivious salt, the mineral which nature presents in many of the southern countries, was long known and used in washing. This was the _nitrum_, or, as the people of Attica pronounced it, the _litrum_, of the ancients, as has already been remarked by others[245]. It would however be worth the trouble to investigate the proofs still further. By examining them with more mineralogical and chemical knowledge than have hitherto been employed for that purpose, they might be further strengthened, and serve to illustrate many obscure passages. For my part, I have neither leisure nor room here to undertake such a task, though I have collected many observations relative to that subject. It is certain at any rate, that the ancients employed _nitrum_ for washing, and it is evident from the testimony of various authors, that it was much used in the baths[246].

That the people of Egypt, in the time of Pliny, made mineral alkali also from the ashes of some plants, we have reason to conclude, because he says that it was necessary to put the Egyptian nitre into vessels well-corked, else it became liquid. Natural alkali is never liable to do so, unless it be very much burnt; and as no reason is assigned for its assuming that form, we may believe that the Egyptian alkali was the strongly burnt ashes of those plants which are still used in Egypt for making salt, and perhaps the same with which the Spaniards were made acquainted by the Arabians, and which they cultivate for making soda.

Strabo speaks of an alkaline water in Armenia, which was used by the scourers for washing clothes[247]. Of this kind also must have been the lake Ascanius, which is mentioned by Aristotle[248], Antigonus Carystius[249], and Pliny[250]. It is worthy of remark, that the ancients made ointments of this mineral alkali and oil, but not hard soap, though by these means they approached nearer to the invention than the old Germans in their use of wood-ashes; for dry solid soap can be made with more ease from the mineral than the vegetable alkali; and when Hungarian, French, and German soap are of equal goodness, the last does more credit to the manufacturers because they cannot employ the mineral alkali. I shall here observe, that this alkali was used for washing by the Hebrews, and that it occurs in the sacred writings under the name of _borith_[251].

The cheapest however, and the most common article used for washing, was the urine of men and animals. When this excrement becomes old, the alkali disengages itself, which may be perceived by its fœtid smell; and such alkalised urine being warmed, and employed to wash greasy clothes, produces the same effects as the _nitrum_ of the ancients. It is still used for the like purpose in our cloth manufactories.

To procure a supply of it, the ancient washers and scourers placed at the corners of the streets, vessels which they carried away after they had been filled by the passengers, who were at liberty to use them; and the practice of having such conveniences was certainly more decent than that of employing the walls of churches and other buildings, which the police of Dresden forbade some years ago, but with no effect. At Rome, that which at present spoils and renders filthy our noblest edifices, was converted to use. When clothes were washed, they were trod upon with the feet, as was the case in the cloth manufactories at Leeds, Halifax, and other places of England, where the urine was collected by servants, and sold by measure to the manufacturers under the name of _old lant_. On account of the disagreeable smell attending their employment, scourers at Rome were obliged to reside either in the suburbs or in some of the unfrequented streets[252].

My readers here will undoubtedly call to remembrance the source of taxation devised by the emperor Vespasian, who, as his historians tell us, _urinæ vectigal commentus est_[253]. It is not certainly known in what manner this impost was regulated. Did the emperor declare that article, which was not _subterraneum rarius_, to be a regale as a _res derelicta_, so that the scourers were obliged to pay him what he thought a reasonable sum proportioned to the benefit which they derived from it? Or was it imposed only as a poll-tax? For every tax upon anything indispensably necessary to all, is, to speak in the language of finance, the same as what is called a poll-tax, or a tax paid by every one who has a head. The latter conjecture is the most probable, especially as this tax continued two centuries, till the time of Anastasius, and as we read also of _vectigal pro urina jumentorum et canum_, which was exacted from every person who kept cattle. Vespasian therefore was not fortunate in the choice of a name for his tribute, which on that account must have been undoubtedly more detested. A poll-tax at present is called by those who do not speak favourably of it, the Turkish-tax, because the Turks impose it on all unbelievers. When it was introduced by Louis XIV. in 1695, he called it _la capitation_.

Of plants with a saponaceous juice, the ancients, at any rate, used one instead of soap; but it is difficult or rather impossible to define it. I shall not therefore content myself merely with transcribing the passages where it is mentioned, but I shall arrange whatever I can find respecting it in such a manner, as, according to my opinion, the names of plants ought to be explained in dictionaries.

Στρουθίον, Struthium, Latinis Herba lanaria, et Plinio etiam Radicula.

1. Est planta spinosa, _Theophrastus_, _Plinius_.

2. Grata aspectu, sed sine odore, _Theophrastus_, _Plinius_.

3. Folio oleæ, _Plinius_; vel papaveris Heraclei, _Theophrastus_.

4. Caule ferulaceo, tenui, lanuginoso, eduli, _Plinius_.

5. Radice magna, acri, medicinali, _Plinius_, _Dioscorides_; spumescente, _Lucian_.

6. Floret æstate, _Theophrastus_. _Plinius_; sed semen nullum, _Plinius_.

7. Nascitur saxosis et asperis locis, _Plinius_.

8. Sponte, præcipue in Asia Syriaque; trans Euphratem laudatissima; sativa ubique, _Plinius_.

9. Radix conditur ad lanas lavandas, _Theophrastus_, _Plinius_, _Dioscorides_, _Columella_, et alii.

10. Herba ovibus lac auget, _Plinius_.

The above is all that the ancients have told us respecting this plant. The information is indeed very scanty, and at the same time it is not altogether certain; but even if it were, it would be sufficient only to confute some conjectures, but not to establish the systematic name of the plant. I call the properties of it described to us uncertain: first, because I do not know whether Pliny did not mean to distinguish the wild plant from that which was cultivated, and many have understood as alluding to the former that which I have applied to both: secondly, because the words of Theophrastus, being in one passage evidently corrupted, will admit of various constructions; and because in another, on account of some exceptions, of which he speaks, they appear at least to me unintelligible: thirdly, because Pliny, who gives us the best account of it, is the only author who calls the _struthium_ or soap-plant _radicula_, a name by which is rather to be understood a dye-plant of the same kind as madder. We have reason therefore to suspect that he has confounded the properties of the two plants, especially as the fourth property was ascribed by others to a _Rubia_, _Asperula_, or _Galium_, which was cultivated in Syria, and named often _radicula Syriaca_. On the other hand, this diminutive is very ill-suited to a root which Pliny himself calls large.

The words of that author, “tingenti, quicquid sit cum quo decoquatur,” have been by some explained as if he meant that the _struthium_ was a dye-plant, though as a soapy plant it must have been destitute of colour; and they have hence deduced a proof that Pliny confounded the _struthium_ with the _radicula_ used in dyeing. On the other hand, Hardouin reads _unguentis_ instead of _tingenti_. He assures us that he found the former in manuscripts, and is of opinion that the sap of the _struthium_ was used also for ointments.

In my opinion, however, _tingenti_ must be retained; and the meaning is that when cloth was to be dyed it was necessary to prepare it for that purpose by soaking it and washing it with the sap of this plant. This he expressly tells us himself; “tingentibus et radicula lanas præparat.” It is probable that the ancient dyers mixed their dye-liquors with the juice of the _struthium_, for the same purpose as bran and the seeds of fenugreek are added to dye-liquors at present; that is, to render them thicker and more slimy, in order that the colouring particles may be longer and more equally suspended in or diffused through them[254]. The words _quidquid sit cum quo decoquatur_ will now become intelligible. Whatever may be employed for dyeing, says the author, the addition of the juice of the _struthium_ is serviceable.

As what has been said contains nothing that can enable us to determine the genus of the _struthium_ according to the rules of botany, we may be allowed to conjecture that it was one of those plants still used for the like purpose in Italy and other neighbouring countries. Fuchs thinks it must have been the _Saponaria officinalis_ (soap-wort), the roots of which indeed contain a saponaceous juice that readily changes the saliva into froth. The root was employed for that purpose by the impostor in Lucian; and the juice is used at present for cleaning wool and cloth. In the Helvetian Alps, the sheep, before they are shorn, are washed with a decoction of the plant and its roots; and with a mixture of ashes it serves for cleaning linen. The taste of it is so sharp, that it is compared by some to that of the small burnet-saxifrage.

This _Saponaria officinalis_ however differs too much from the remaining properties[255] of the _struthium_. Its root is as thick only as a quill, or at most as one’s finger. The stem, which is three feet in height, throws out many branches, and cannot be called _caulis ferulaceus, tenuis_. It is not rough and prickly, and, instead of growing in poor rocky soil, it is rather fond of deep ground and the borders of corn-fields.

We may therefore conjecture with more probability that the _Gypsophila Struthium_, Linn.[256], a plant still used for washing in the lower part of Italy and Spain, is the _struthium_ of the ancients. This opinion acquires some strength by its being adopted among the Italians and Spaniards; and because the plant, as Pliny says, grows in a rocky soil and on the mountains. It is also still called _lanaria_ by the Calabrian peasants. It has a tender stem; its leaves are so like those of the olive-tree that they might be compared to them by those who are not botanists; and its root is large, but it is neither rough nor prickly. This contradiction may be accounted for by supposing that Pliny, through a mistake, of which I have already accused him, ascribed falsely to the soap-plant the prickly or rough leaves of the dye-plant which had an affinity to madder. But even after this explanation there still remains to be got over a dubious passage of Theophrastus, who indeed seems to make the plant prickly also.

I do not therefore place entire confidence in this opinion; but suspect rather that we shall receive from the East an account of a plant, still used there, which will correspond more exactly with the soap-plant described by Pliny. I am inclined to think that I have already found some precursory information respecting it in Bauhin, who says that in Syria there is another kind of soap-plant, which has prickly leaves like the thistle, and a thick root of a sharp acrid taste. The root, he adds, was employed for washing clothes and wool; and the confectioners of Damascus formed of it, with honey and wine, a kind of sweetmeat which appeared as white as if it had been made of the finest flour and sugar, and which was so hard that it could scarcely be broken with the teeth. This plant seems to belong to those, the cultivation of which was abandoned in Europe, after the use of them was rendered superfluous by newer discoveries.

That the ancients employed their _struthium_ for washing wool is confirmed by various authorities; but I do not remember to have found any evidence of its being used for cleaning clothes which had been worn. Salmasius however quotes a passage from the works, unfortunately never printed, of the old chemist Zosimus, in which he gives directions for restoring, by means of the soap-plant, the lustre of pearls which have become yellow[257].

The meal of many kinds of seeds may be used for washing, as well as various kinds of bran. That of almonds, which on account of its oil is remarkably soft, is employed at present for washing the hands by those who are desirous of having a white delicate skin. Cloth, the colours of which easily fade, and which will neither endure soap nor hard rubbing, may be washed extremely well with bran. Our fullers, therefore, and stocking manufacturers use oat-, barley- and bean-meal, especially when they wish the cloth to be slowly milled. Whether the ancients employed bran in the same manner I have not had an opportunity of examining. I am rather inclined to think that they did; and there is a passage of Galen which seems to allude to the use of bean-meal[258]. In all probability the beans of the ancients were the smallest and roundest variety of our horse-beans, or those used as fodder.

In the last place, the ancients, at those periods of which I speak, used fullers-earth much oftener than it is used at present. Till the countries where it was procured be described by travellers who unite a knowledge of antiquities with skill in mineralogy, the species of this earth, mentioned in the works of ancient authors, cannot be distinguished with accuracy. But from the purposes to which they were applied, we can with certainty conclude that they must have been partly of the nature of marl and partly of the nature of soapstone.

According to the then usual method of washing, by which the clothes were stamped with the feet, the _cretæ fulloniæ_, as Pliny[259] calls them, acted in the same manner as our fullers-earth employed at present, partly by scouring and partly by absorbing the greasy dirt. The ancients, after their manner, gave them names only from the countries where they were produced; and hence we find mention made of _terra Cimolia_[260], _Chia_[261], _Lemnia_[262], _Sarda_[263], _Umbria_[264], _Samia_, _Tymphæa_[265], and others. Many of them, like that brought from Sardinia, could not be used in cleaning coloured stuffs; and for this reason, perhaps, because some colours would not stand hard scouring, or endure their caustic nature.

The fullers, however, did not use these earths merely for washing, but also for whitening many kinds of cloth. This was done by rubbing fine white earth into the cloth, in the same manner as soldiers do to give some parts of their dress a brighter appearance. A like process is employed by glovers and those who wash or clean leather. The earth used by the latter is a yellowish-white iron-ochre, called from the purpose to which it is applied collar-earth[266]. When a perfect white was required, a kind of white potters-clay or marl was employed; and the closer it adhered to the cloth, and the less easily it could be rubbed out, it was so much the better. The poor at Rome rubbed it over their clothes on festivals, in order that they might appear brighter[267].

It deserves here to be particularly remarked, that some of these earths, such as that of Chios, were employed in the baths instead of nitrum; and this is the case in the Levant still. De la Valle extols in this respect a kind of reddish earth, and says that people of the first distinction never bathe without it. Perfumes are often mixed with it; and it is formed into small balls, which when used are suffered to dissolve in the water. Different kinds of vessels, and particularly those in which wine and oil had been kept, were cleansed with these earths also[268]. Glass flasks which have had oil in them, cannot be cleansed better or more speedily than by shaking in them a mixture of fullers-earth or potters-clay. When these are not to be had, blotting-paper may be used. The oil is absorbed by the earth or the paper, and with them can be easily washed out.

To render cloth perfectly white, it was also fumigated with sulphur by the fullers, who were not ignorant that many colours were destroyed by its vapours[269]. We are told by Apuleius that the wife of a scourer concealed her gallant under a vessel of basket-work, over which cloth used to be laid to whiten by the effects of sulphur kindled under it. Our washer-women employ a cask in this mode of bleaching, and our clothiers a small close apartment, in which the wet cloth is suspended upon hooks.

Pliny has described the method of washing used at Rome, but many things respecting it appear to me obscure[270]. The cloth was first washed with Sardian earth; it was then fumigated with sulphur, and afterwards rinsed with real Cimolian earth. The word _desquamatur_ was undoubtedly a term of art, which cannot be further explained, because we are unacquainted with the operation to which it alludes. Pliny seems to have been particular in mentioning real Cimolian earth, because the false kind became black by the steam of the sulphur which the cloth absorbed. Was it adulterated with some metallic oxide or with white lead? It was dear enough to induce people to mix it with such articles; and in that case it must necessarily have become black.

The expression _funditur sulphure_ seems to be attended with no less difficulty. In comparing the different readings, I find that the oldest editions have _offunditur_, which has been changed into _effunditur_, and lastly into _funditur_. It is probable however that instead of _offunditur_ we ought to read _offenditur_, which would make the whole clear. I am much surprised that this reading was not adopted by Hardouin. As Pliny says in other parts of his work “offendit stomachum,” and “offendit aciem oculorum,” he might undoubtedly have applied that word to the earth and its colour.

Fast colours, which the acid of sulphur might render pale, but could not entirely destroy, would by washing with Cimolian earth be improved or rather restored, as the earth would absorb and carry off the acid. There was also another kind of earth (_saxum_) which was useful in the preparation of cloth fumigated with sulphur, but which injured the dye, probably because it was too calcareous, and which was perhaps our common chalk.

I do not intend to treat here of the whole art of Roman fullers, which belongs rather to the history of weaving or manufacturing cloth in general; but I hope I shall be forgiven if I add the few following observations. The fullers received the cloth as it came from the loom, in order that it might be scoured, walked and smoothed. It was walked by being stamped upon with the feet. The rough wool raised by this operation was combed off, partly with the skin of a hedgehog, and

## partly with the tops of some plants of the thistle kind, in order to

give the cloth a nap. Shearing seems not then to have been known: I have at least met with no passage where it is mentioned: and the case is the same with the use of presses; which, in my opinion, were not invented till the sixteenth century. The whole process of smoothing seems to have consisted in making the wool or nap lie as evenly as possible one way, which certainly must have given to the cloth a much better appearance.

As cloth at present is more dressed and shorn on one side than another, the ancient fullers prepared theirs in the like manner; so that clothes could be turned, after the inside of them had been new dressed. Whether they made felt, also, I have not yet inquired; but I conjecture that the manufacturing it was the occupation of those called _lanarii_, _coactores_, and _coactilarii_.

The occupation of the fullers was at Rome very extensive, and afforded employment to a great number of people, but it at length entirely decayed. Schöttgen is of opinion that it belongs to those arts which have been lost. But other writers have declared arts which are exercised now in greater perfection than formerly to be lost, merely because they were not acquainted with them; or because, on account of the alterations they have undergone, they did not know where to find them. All the different operations of fulling have become so complex by new methods, improvements, and inventions, that they can no longer be conducted by one man; and the whole business has for that reason been separated or divided into several distinct branches.

The scouring of cloth when it comes from the loom, was, together with walking, separated from the rest, after the invention of the walk-mill. How old that invention may be, I cannot accurately determine; but we find it mentioned in the beginning of the thirteenth, and even at the end of the tenth century. Such a mill formerly was call _fullencium_, or _molendinum cum fullone_[271]. The dressing and smoothing of cloth, since the invention of shearing and pressing, requires so much art, that these operations can be performed only by skilful workmen, who are called cloth-shearers or cloth-dressers. The scouring of cloth dirtied in manufacturing, is by the invention of soap, bleaching, and other processes, become so easy that it can be performed by women. The Romans for the most part wore a white dress made in the form of a cloak; which indeed, as shirts were not then used, must have often stood in need of being cleaned[272]. We, on the other hand, wear in general short close clothes of coloured cloth; which by the fashion in which they are made, are less exposed to be dirtied; and we are more accustomed also to use clothes of linen or cotton, which can be washed with much less labour. Felt, which is employed almost for hats alone, is manufactured by our hat-makers. Whoever takes a general view of all these employments together, will be readily convinced that they maintain more people, and in a better manner, than the whole _ars fullonia_ did at Rome.

[The principal kinds of soap manufactured in this country are,--white soap, composed chiefly of tallow and soda, but for some purposes of olive oil and soda; yellow soap, made of tallow, rosin and soda, a little palm oil being occasionally added; mottled soap, formed of tallow, kitchen stuff and soda, its peculiar appearance being communicated by dispersing the lees through it towards the end of the operation; brown soap, made from palm oil, rosin and soda. Soft soap is made with potash and drying oils, either alone or mixed with tallow, and other coarse fatty matters. The fatty matter is mixed with the alkaline ley, and the whole boiled gently for some time, until the fat is completely saponified, which may be known by its becoming clear and transparent, and its susceptibility of being drawn into long threads. A quantity of common salt is then added to the boiling mixture, until the soap loses its thready character, and drops from the spatula in short thick lumps. The soap is then removed, either after cooling, or at once ladled out. Common fatty matters, as tallow, fat-oils, &c., are compounds of a fatty acid with a base, thus resembling salts; the base is a peculiar sweet principle, glycerine; by ebullition with the caustic lye, the neutral fatty compound is decomposed, the fatty acid combining with the base soda, and forming the soap, whilst the glycerine with the excess of alkali remains in the liquid.

The so-called _silicated_ soap, of which large quantities are now manufactured, is made by combining silicate of soda with hard soap in the hot and pasty state; in this way from 10 to 30 per cent. of the silicate may be introduced. Such soap possesses, according to Dr. Ure, very powerful detergent qualities, but it is apt to feel hard and somewhat gritty in use. The silicated soda is obtained by boiling ground flints in a strong caustic lye. Many substances are used to adulterate soap, such as potatoe-starch, clay, &c., for which _improvements_, as they are termed, numerous patents have been granted in this country.

In Great Britain the hard kind of soap is chiefly made at Liverpool and London, but in considerable quantities also at Runcorn, Bristol, Brentford, Hull, Bromsgrove, Plymouth and Sethwick, and at Glasgow and Leith in Scotland; the soft soap is made principally at Liverpool, Glasgow and Bradford; and silicated soap is likewise extensively manufactured at Liverpool.

From the excise returns, it appears that 140,712,535 pounds of hard, 9,788,851 pounds of soft, and 3,921,862 pounds of silicated soap were made in England in 1841; and 10,708,464 pounds of hard, and 4,535,030 pounds of soft soap in Scotland; making in all 169,666,742 pounds, which is an increase of about 30 per cent. since 1832[273].

The excise duty on soap was first imposed in Great Britain in 1711, when it was fixed at 1_d._ per pound. It was raised in 1713 to 1½_d._ per pound; and again, in 1782, when hard and soft soap were first distinguished, the former being rated at 2¼_d._, and the latter at 1¾_d._ per pound. In 1816, that on hard soap was increased to 3_d._ per pound. But since May 31, 1833, the duty has been 1½_d._ per pound on hard soap, and 1_d._ per pound on soft. In 1839, the number of soap manufacturers in England was 177; in Scotland 19; and in Ireland 183. Each requires an annual license, costing 4_l._

An allowance of duty is made on soap used in the woollen, silk, flax, and cotton manufactures, which in 1841 was granted on 10,190,160 pounds of hard, and 9,090,184 pounds of soft soap; the allowances amounting to 78,112_l._ In the same year the net amount yielded by the soap-duty to the public revenue was 815,864_l._ Ireland is not subject to the soap-duty.

The soap-maker was formerly subjected to an arbitrary and vexatious interference from the excise; but of late years the regulations have been greatly improved, and there is now no superintendence of the process of manufacture, which may be conducted in any way and of any material.]

FOOTNOTES

[231] Plin. xviii. 12, sect. 51, p. 475.

[232] It is beyond all doubt that the words _sapo_ and σάπων were derived from the German _sepe_, which has been retained in the Low German, the oldest and original dialect of our language. In the High German this derivation has been rendered a little more undistinguishable by the _p_ being changed into the harder _f_. Such changes are common, as _schap_, _schaf_; _schip_, _schiff_, &c.

[233] De Simplicibus Medicaminibus, p. 90, G.

[234] According to Aretæus De Diuturnis Morbis, ii. 13, p. 98, soap appears to have been formed into balls.

[235] Mart. xiv. 27. This soap acquired the epithet of _Mattiacum_ from the name of a place which was in Hesse.

[236]

Caustica Teutonicos accendit spuma capillos, Captivis poteris cultior esse comis.--Mart. xiv. 26.

These lines are generally explained in this manner:--“Dye thy hair with soap, and it will become more beautiful than that of the Germans.” But in this case all the wit of the advice is lost; and the expression, “eris cultior quam comæ captivæ,” seems to me to be very improper. I should rather translate them as follows:--“Let the Germans dye their hair with pomade; as they are now subdued, thou mayst ornament thyself better with a peruke made of the hair of these captives.” This was a piece of delicate flattery to Domitian and the Roman pride. That prince thought he had conquered the Germans; and the most beautiful German hair, that which was not dyed, could be procured, therefore, at Rome, much easier than before. If the title of this epigram was written by Martial himself, it contains the first mention of the word _sapo_.

[237]

Fortior et tortos servat vesica capillos, Et mutat Latias spuma Batava comas.--Mart. viii. 23, 19.

The first line of the above proves that people then covered their heads, in the night-time, with a bladder to keep their hair, after it was dressed, from being deranged; and a bladder was undoubtedly as fit for that use as the nets and cauls employed for the like purpose at present.

[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.

MADDER.

This plant, the root of which is either dried and bruised, or used fresh, for dyeing red, has a weak, square, jointed stem; and rises to the height of eight feet when supported, otherwise it creeps along the ground. At each joint there are from four to six leaves, about three inches in length, almost an inch broad in the middle, and pointed at both ends. The upper side of the leaves is smooth; but the middle nerve of the under side is armed with small rough prickles; and others of the same kind may be found on the stem. On this account, the leaves, which drop annually, adhere readily to other bodies, like those of the _asperugo_. The branches, which in June bear flowers divided into four yellow leaves, proceed from the joints. The fruit, a kind of berry, which, towards the time of its ripening, though that seldom happens among us, is first of a brownish colour, and then black, contains a round seed. The roots grow sometimes to the thickness of one’s finger, push themselves deep into the earth, are surrounded by many small fibres, have a yellowish-red pith, and are covered with a black bark or rind. This plant grows wild in the Levant, as well as in Italy, the southern parts of France, and in Switzerland. The cultivated kind is well known, and is propagated with much advantage in various countries of Europe.

When one compares this short description with what Dioscorides says of a plant which he calls _ereuthodanon_, it will be readily seen that he meant our madder. He even compares its long square stem, armed with a great many hooks, to that of the _asperugo_; and he tells us that the leaves stand in the form of a star around the joints. The fruit was at first green, then red, and lastly black. The thin long roots, adds he, which are red, serve for dyeing; and on that account the cultivated kind (he must therefore have been acquainted with the wild sort) is reared with much benefit in Galilee, around Ravenna in Italy and in Caria, where it is planted either among the olive-trees, or in fields destined for that purpose. It is remarked in some manuscripts, that this plant had a name given it by the Romans, which, as Marcellus Virgil observes, meant the same thing as _Rubia sativa_, and that it was called in Etruria _Lappa minor_, doubtless because, like the bur, it adhered to other bodies. On account of the colour which it communicated, it was called also sometimes _cinnabaris_[274].

In opposition to this asserted identity I find only one doubt; namely, that among those plants which, on account of the position of their leaves, were called _stellatæ_, and which were all so like that we must reduce them to one natural order, there are more sorts, the roots of which dye red, and which on that account are very improperly called wild madder. Why, therefore, should the plant of Dioscorides be our madder, and not some other plant of the like nature? For this reason, in my opinion: because the ancients, who were acquainted with all these plants, which grew wild in their lands, were equally prudent as the moderns, and cultivated that kind only which was the most productive or beneficial, viz. our _Rubia tinctorum_.

This opinion will be strengthened by comparing the accounts given of that plant by other ancient writers. Theophrastus agrees almost perfectly with Dioscorides; and adds, that it did not grow upright, but was fond of reclining. The comparison, therefore, with the leaves of ivy cannot be just; but that I shall leave to the critics. Pliny says expressly, that the _erythrodanum_ or _ereuthodanum_ was in his mother-tongue called _rubia_; and that its red roots were used to dye wool and leather red[275].

In the middle ages this plant was called _varantia_, a name which must have arisen from _verantia_. The latter means the real, genuine dye; as _aurantia_ signified a golden yellow. Till the year 1736, this plant was little regarded, except among dyers, farmers and merchants, who purchased it from the farmers, in order to sell it to the dyers with profit; and among a few herb-dealers and physicians, who, on the authority of the ancients, ascribed to it eminent virtues, which others doubted or altogether denied. In the above year, however, a property of it was discovered by accident, as usual, which rendered it an object of more attention. John Belchier, an English surgeon, having dined with a cotton-printer, observed that the bones of the pork which was brought to the table were red. As he seemed surprised at this circumstance, his host assured him that the redness was occasioned by the swine feeding on the water mixed with bran in which the cotton cloth was boiled, and which was coloured by the madder used in printing it. Belchier[276], to whom this effect was new, convinced himself by experiments that the red colour of the bones had arisen from the madder employed in printing the cotton, and from no other cause; and he communicated his discovery to the Royal Society, in a paper which was printed in their Transactions.

This singularity was now soon known to all the naturalists, several of whom made new experiments, the result of which brought to light many truths useful to physiology. Besides the roots of madder, those of the _Galium_ (yellow ladies-bed-straw) and other plants which have an affinity to madder, produce the like effects; but this is the case neither with saffron nor woad, nor with many others much used in dyeing. The colouring takes place soonest in young animals; and is strongest where the bones are hardest and thickest. On the other hand, it does not reach the soft parts; appears only a little in the milk; and in general is not perceptible in the animal juices[277].

As the English calico-printers were acquainted with this effect of madder before it was known to naturalists, it is not improbable that it was known much sooner in other places, where the plant has been much cultivated and used since the earliest periods. From what J. E. Stief says, we have reason to believe that the people in the neighbourhood of Breslau, his native city, who gave the stalks of the madder plant to their cows instead of straw, must have first discovered that it possessed the property of communicating a red colour to the bones[278].

As many truths not yet investigated by means of new experiments, and which on that account have not yet been acknowledged, are concealed among the evidently false assertions to be found in the works of the ancients, and as these works were thrown aside too early, before their contents were properly examined, I was induced to suspect that some hints of this colouring property might also be mentioned in them, which indeed is the case.

We learn from the works of Galen and Dioscorides, that the ancient physicians remarked that the use of certain roots, which they administered to their patients, communicated a colour to their urine and excrements; and this observation has been repeated by Cardan, Thurneisser, Porta, Castor, Durantes, and others. Had those ancient physicians, who often prescribed these roots, and paid attention to the colour of the excrements of their patients, been accustomed to open their bodies when they died under their hands, they would have perhaps remarked, in human bones, what was observed long after in the bones of animals, when the roots were no longer used in medicine; and what, if I am not mistaken, was never yet observed in the bones of the human species[279].

Böhmer, who made researches respecting the antiquity of this observation, found it neither in Rombert. Dodonæus, Mich. Ettmuller, Morin, Will. Salmon, nor others, who, however, speak of coloured urine. In his opinion the oldest writer who speaks of coloured bones is Mizaldus; but what he relates is all taken from the treatise of Lemnius De Miraculis Occultis Naturæ; and the latter therefore is the oldest writer that I at present can mention as acquainted with this property. He was a physician in Zealand, where madder has been cultivated since the earliest ages, and where he had an opportunity of remarking it. He says that the bones of animals became red, as had been observed when the flesh was dressed, by their eating only the leaves, and not the roots. In the first edition of the above work, printed in octavo, in the year 1559, which consists of two books, this information will not be found; but it may be contained in the second of 1564, which comprehends four books.

[The madder plant is much cultivated in Holland, but Macquei observes that the Dutch were first indebted to the Flemish refugees for their knowledge of the method of preparing this plant. Its culture has often been attempted in England, but always without success[280]. It is also largely cultivated in Alsace and Provence in France, especially near Avignon, in Asiatic Turkey, and in Italy; from which places it is largely exported. The Turkey and Provence madder is procured from _Rubia peregrina_; the remainder from _R. tinctorum_. To prepare the root, which is the part used in dyeing, it is removed from the ground, picked, dried and ground.

Madder contains three distinct colouring principles; two of these are red, viz. alizarine and purpurine, and one, xanthine, is yellow.

Since 1836, two new products have been introduced into commerce, which are destined to replace madder in the operations of dyeing and calico-printing; one is called garancine, the other colorine. Garancine is prepared by washing and macerating madder, and filtering through linen. The grounds are then crushed and mixed with sulphuric acid, equal to half the amount of madder first employed; the acid should be somewhat dilute. It is then poured hot upon the madder, agitated, and when the mixture appears intimate, the temperature is raised to 212°, and maintained for about an hour. It is then again mixed with water, filtered, and thoroughly washed. It is finally pressed, dried and passed through the sieve. This is the process patented by MM. Lagier, Robiquet and Colin, in 1828.

It was first introduced into commerce by the house of Lagier and Thomas, at Avignon, in 1829.

The great advantage of garancine over madder is that it does not change the white, and that the bleaching of the stuffs dyed with it is reduced to a mere nothing. Hot water or bran are the only means used for clearing them. Madder is an adjective colour, that is to say, one which requires to be combined with some basic substance or mordant to render its fixture upon the dye-stuff permanent.]

FOOTNOTES

[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.

JUGGLERS, ROPE-DANCERS, AUTOMATA, ETC.

Under this title I comprehend not only those properly called jugglers, who, for the sake of money, by quick and artful motions of their hands, bodies, and limbs, and by various preparations, delude the senses in an agreeable manner, or practise an innocent deception on the spectators, so that they think they hear and see what they do not really hear and see, but also rope-dancers; people who place their bodies in positions according to all appearance dangerous; and those who for pay exhibit animals taught to perform uncommon tricks, as well as automata, which by their concealed construction seem to produce wonderful effects.

But is it worth while to inquire into the antiquity of all these arts, unprofitable to the public, which form the favourite amusements of the populace? The selfish question _cui bono_, which is often thrown out by way of reproach to men of letters, but oftener to naturalists, and even to jurists, when, in their researches, they advance beyond the beaten track, I might easily get rid of by civilly telling the querists to pass over this article if they think they are not likely to derive benefit from it. I might also apologise for employing my time and labour on this subject, by using the words of a certain historian: “Frivola hæc fortassis cuipiam et nimis levia esse videantur, sed curiositas nihil recusat.” I shall however adopt neither of these methods; as I flatter myself that this essay may afford as much amusement as many that are read daily; and that therefore it may not only be excused, but even justified.

Those arts and employments which are most necessary in life were undoubtedly the earliest, and they have still continued to be the most important; but when these were sufficiently occupied, or carried on by as many persons as could live by them, the rest, who were excluded from them, conceived the idea of amusing the former when tired with their labour, that by these means they might obtain from them a part of the fruits of their industry. I request my readers to reflect how many occupations have been devised for no other purpose. They will find that several of these have acquired a pre-eminence over the necessary or useful arts; and to the same class belong jugglers.

All political writers tell us, as a fundamental principle of government, that population ought to be increased. This maxim however is just only under certain circumstances; that is, when employment can be procured to a greater number of inhabitants than a country already possesses. Of beggars we have to maintain too many. All our trades and occupations are not only filled up with workmen, but overflow. Our farmers can employ no more labourers, and our manufacturers no more hands than they have at present; our regiments are full; and in every employment there are more candidates and more supernumeraries than is consistent with the good of the public. Must it not therefore give us pleasure, when necessity invents new means of acquiring a livelihood, although they could be dispensed with? It is much better that those who have learned no useful art; who have lost their youth in the service of others; or who are destitute, through any other cause, should gain their bread by amusing their fellow-citizens, than that they should either beg or steal.

These arts are indeed not unprofitable, for they afford a comfortable subsistence to those who practise them; but their gain is acquired by too little labour to be hoarded up; and, in general, these roving people spend on the spot the fruits of their ingenuity; which is an additional reason why their stay in a place should be encouraged. I have however known some who saved so much from their earnings, that, in their old age, they were enabled to enter into some business more certain as well as more profitable.

People of this description will never want encouragement and support while they exhibit with confidence anything uncommon, and know how to suit the nature of their amusements to the taste of the spectators. The greater part of mankind love deception so much, that they reward liberally those who impose on their senses, as is proved by the ready sale of gilt articles, artificial gems, and a thousand other things which are not in reality what they appear to be. I do not know whether Montagne is right in considering it as a sign of the weakness of our judgement, that we take a pleasure in beholding objects on account of their rarity, novelty, or the difficulty that attends them, though they may be subservient to no useful purpose[281]. This appears to me to proceed from that innate curiosity which serves as a spur to incite us to enlarge our knowledge, and to engage in researches and undertakings that often lead to discoveries of greater importance.

Jugglers indeed seldom exhibit anything that can appear wonderful to those acquainted with natural philosophy and mathematics; but these even often find satisfaction in seeing truths already known to them applied in a new manner; and they readily embrace every opportunity of having them further illustrated by experiments. Many however are too precipitate, and attempt to explain before they have sufficiently examined, of which the golden tooth at the end of the sixteenth century, the conjuring-rod at the end of the seventeenth, and the chess-player and speaking-machine at the end of the eighteenth, may serve as instances. But it often happens, that what ignorant persons first employ, merely as a show, for amusement or deception, is afterwards ennobled by being applied to a more important purpose. The machine with which a Savoyard, by means of shadows, amused children and the populace, was by Lieberkühn converted into a solar microscope; and to give one example more, which may convince female readers, if I can hope for such, the art of making ice in summer, or in a heated oven, enables guests, much to the credit of their hostess, to cool the most expensive dishes. The Indian discovers precious stones, and the European, by polishing, gives them a lustre.

But if the arts of juggling served no other end than to amuse the most ignorant of our citizens, it is proper that they should be encouraged for the sake of those who cannot enjoy the more expensive deceptions of an opera. They answer other purposes however than that of merely amusing; they convey instruction in the most acceptable manner, and serve as a most agreeable antidote to superstition, and to that popular belief in miracles, exorcism, conjuration, sorcery, and witchcraft, from which our ancestors suffered so severely. Wherever the vulgar were astonished at the effects of shadows, electricity, mirrors, and the magnet, interested persons endeavoured by these to frighten them; and thus misapplied the powers of nature to promote their own advantage. The pontiffs and their clergy ought, undoubtedly, to be detested for discouraging experimental philosophy. That science they considered as a formidable enemy; and they thought they gained no small advantage when they induced the house of Medici, by granting it the cardinalship, to suppress the Academy del Cimento. When Gasner exhibited his deceptions, some one proposed to him to try his art at Berlin or Göttingen, and to drive out there if it were only the smallest of all the devils; but these cities were not theatres where he was likely to succeed, and he never ventured to appear in them[282]. It is however better that the populace, if they will absolutely pay for being deceived, should be exposed to a momentary deception from jugglers than to a continual deception from priests. As the former are not covered with the sacred cloak of religion, their deceptions are more easily seen through and detected; and they consequently soon cease to be hurtful. So late as the year 1601, a horse, which had been taught to perform a number of tricks, was tried, as possessed by the devil, and condemned to be burnt[283]. At present horses of this kind are so often exhibited publicly in the heretical countries of Europe, that the Spanish Inquisition, perhaps, will soon be ashamed of considering such proofs of the docility of these animals, and of the patient dexterity of their teachers, as the work of the devil, as they did at the above period. Those who view the art of the juggler in the same light as I do, will, I hope, forgive me for introducing these observations, and allow me to continue them while I inquire into the antiquity of this employment; especially as I shall endeavour by these means to illustrate more fully my subject.

Had that book which Celsus wrote against the Magi been preserved, we should have been much better acquainted with the art of the ancient conjurors or jugglers. This Celsus, without doubt, is the same author whose virulent attack against the Christians was refuted by Origen; and we have, therefore, greater cause to regret that a work on the above subject, by so learned and acute a philosopher, should have been lost. He is mentioned with respect by Lucian, and even by Origen; and the former derived from him the account which he gives of Alexander the impostor[284]. More ancient authors also wrote upon the same subject. Some of them are mentioned by Diogenes Laërtius in his preface; and Suidas quotes the Magicon of Antisthenes, though neither of these speaks of Celsus; but of all those writings none are now extant.

The deception of breathing out flames, which at present excites in a

## particular manner the astonishment of the ignorant, is very ancient.

When the slaves in Sicily, about a century and a half before our æra, made a formidable insurrection, and avenged themselves in a cruel manner for the severities which they had suffered, there was amongst them a Syrian named Eunus[285], a man of great craft and courage, who, having passed through many scenes of life, had become acquainted with a variety of arts. He pretended to have immediate communication with the gods; was the oracle and leader of his fellow-slaves; and, as is usual on such occasions, confirmed his divine mission by miracles. When, heated by enthusiasm and desirous of inspiring his followers with courage, he breathed flames or sparks among them from his mouth while he was addressing them. We are told by historians, that for this purpose he pierced a nut-shell at both ends, and, having filled it with some burning substance, put it into his mouth and breathed through it. This deception, at present, is performed much better. The juggler rolls together some flax or hemp, so as to form a ball about the size of a walnut; sets it on fire; and suffers it to burn till it is nearly consumed; he then rolls round it, while burning, some more flax; and by these means the fire may be retained in it for a long time. When he wishes to exhibit, he slips the ball unperceived into his mouth and breathes through it; which again revives the fire, so that a number of weak sparks proceed from it; and the performer sustains no hurt, provided he inspire the air not through the mouth, but the nostrils[286].

By this art the rabbi Bar-Cocheba, in the reign of the emperor Hadrian, made the credulous Jews believe that he was the hoped-for Messias[287]; and two centuries after, the emperor Constantius was thrown into great terror, when Valentinian informed him that he had seen one of the body-guards breathing out fire and flames in the evening[288].

For deceptions with fire the ancients employed also naphtha, a liquid mineral oil, which kindles when it only approaches a flame. Galen informs us, that a person excited great astonishment by extinguishing a candle and again lighting it, without any other process than holding it immediately against a wall or a stone. The whole secret of this consisted in having previously rubbed over the wall or stone with sulphur. But as the author, a few lines before, speaks of a mixture of sulphur and naphtha, there is reason to think that he alludes to the same here. Plutarch[289] relates how Alexander the Great was astonished and delighted with the secret effects of naphtha, which were exhibited to him at Ecbatana. The same author, as well as Pliny, Galen, and others, has already remarked, that the substance with which Medea destroyed Creusa, the daughter of Creon, was nothing else than this fine oil[290]. She sent to the unfortunate princess a dress besmeared with it, which burst into flames as soon as she approached the fire of the altar. The blood of Nessus, wherein the dress of Hercules, which took fire likewise, had been dipped, was undoubtedly naphtha also[291]; and this oil must have been always employed when offerings caught fire in an imperceptible manner[292]. In all periods of the world priests have acted as jugglers to simple and ignorant people.

In modern times, persons who could walk over burning coals or red-hot iron, or who could hold them in their hands and their teeth, have often excited wonder. In the end of the seventeenth century, an Englishman, named Richardson, who, as we are assured, could chew burning coals, pour melted lead upon his tongue, swallow melted glass, &c., rendered himself very famous by these extraordinary feats[293]. Laying aside the deception[294] practised on the spectators, the whole of this secret consists in rendering the skin of the soles of the feet and hands so callous and insensible, that the nerves under them are secured from all hurt, in the same manner as by shoes and gloves. Such callosity will be produced if the skin is continually compressed, singed, pricked, or injured in any other manner. Thus do the fingers of the industrious sempstress become horny by being frequently pricked; and the case is the same with the hands of fire-workers, and the feet of those who walk bare-footed over scorching sand[295].

In the month of September, 1765, when I visited the copper-works at Awestad, one of the workmen, for a little drink-money, took some of the melted copper in his hand, and after showing it to us, threw it against a wall[296]. He then squeezed the fingers of his horny hand close to each other; put it a few minutes under his armpit, to make it sweat, as he said; and, taking it again out, drew it over a ladle filled with melted copper, some of which he skimmed off, and moved his hand backwards and forwards, very quickly, by way of ostentation. While I was viewing this performance, I remarked a smell like that of singed horn or leather, though his hand was not burnt. The workmen at the Swedish melting-houses showed the same thing to some travellers in the seventeenth century; for Regnard saw it in 1681, at the copper-works in Lapland. It is highly probable that the people who hold in their hands red-hot iron, or who walk upon it, as I saw done at Amsterdam, but at a distance, make their skin callous before, in the like manner. This may be accomplished by frequently moistening it with oil of vitriol; according to some the juice of certain plants will produce the same effect; and we are assured by others that the skin must be very frequently rubbed, for a long time, with oil, by which means, indeed, leather also will become horny.

Of this art, traces may be found also in the works of the ancients. A festival was held annually on Mount Soracte, in Etruria, at which the Hirpi, who lived not far from Rome, jumped through burning coals; and on this account they were indulged with peculiar privileges by the Roman senate[297]. Women also, we are told, were accustomed to walk over burning coals at Castabala in Cappadocia, near the temple dedicated to Diana[298]. Servius remarks, from a work of Varro now lost, that the Hirpi trusted not so much to their own sanctity as to the care which they had taken to prepare their feet for that operation.

I am not acquainted with everything that concerns the trial by ordeal, when persons accused were obliged to prove their innocence by holding in their hands red-hot iron; but I am almost convinced that this also was a juggling trick of the priests, which they employed as might best suit their views. It is well known that this mode of exculpation was allowed only to weak persons, who were unfit to wield arms, and

## particularly to monks and ecclesiastics, to whom, for the sake of

their security, that by single combat was forbidden. The trial itself took place in the church entirely under the inspection of the clergy; mass was celebrated at the same time; the defendant and the iron were consecrated by being sprinkled with holy water; the clergy made the iron hot themselves; and they used all these preparatives, as jugglers do many motions, only to divert the attention of the spectators. It was necessary that the accused persons should remain at least three days and three nights under their immediate care, and continue as long after. They covered their hands both before and after the proof; sealed and unsealed the covering: the former, as they pretended, to prevent the hands from being prepared any how by art; and the latter to see if they were burnt.

Some artificial preparation was therefore known, else no precautions would have been necessary. It is highly probable that during the first three days the preventive was applied to those persons whom they wished to appear innocent; and that the three days after the trial were requisite to let the hands resume their natural state. The sacred sealing secured them from the examination of presumptuous unbelievers; for to determine whether the hands were burnt, the last three days were certainly not wanted. When the ordeal was abolished, and this art rendered useless, the clergy no longer kept it a secret. In the thirteenth century an account of it was published by Albertus Magnus, a Dominican monk[299]. If his receipt be genuine, it seems to have consisted rather in covering the hands with a kind of paste than in hardening them. The sap of the _Althæa_ (marsh-mallow), the slimy seeds of the flea-bane, which is still used for stiffening by the hat-makers and silk-weavers, together with the white of an egg, were employed to make the paste adhere; and by these means the hands were as safe as if they had been secured by gloves. The use of this juggling trick is very old, and may be traced back to a pagan origin. In the Antigone of Sophocles, the guards placed over the body of Polynices, which had been carried away and buried contrary to the orders of Creon, offered, in order to prove their innocence, to submit to any trial: “We will,” said they, “take up red-hot iron in our hands, or walk through fire[300].”

The exhibition of balls and cups, which is often mentioned in the works of the ancients as the most common art of jugglers, is also of great antiquity. It consists in conveying speedily and with great dexterity, while the performer endeavours by various motions and cant phrases to divert the attention of the simple spectators from observing his movements too narrowly, several light balls, according to the pleasure of any person in company, under one or more cups; removing them sometimes from the whole; and conveying them again back in an imperceptible manner. In general, three leaden cups are used, and as many balls of cork; and to prevent all discovery by their slipping from the thumbs of the juggler, or making a noise, as he must lay hold of them with much quickness, the table before which he sits is covered with a cloth.

These small balls were by the ancients called _calculi_; and the cups _acetabula_, or _paropsides_. Casaubon[301] has already quoted most of those passages in ancient authors which relate to this subject; and they have been repeated by Bulenger[302]; but neither of these writers makes mention of the fullest and clearest description given in the letters of Alciphron[303]. We have there an account of a countryman who came to town, and was conducted by a merchant to the theatre, where he saw with great astonishment the exhibition of cups and balls. “Such an animal,” says he, “as the performer I would not wish to have near me in the country; for in his hands my property would soon disappear.” The art of oratory, because it deceives the auditors, is frequently compared to that of balls and cups. From the Latin word _gabata_, mentioned by Martial, together with _paropsides_, the French have made _gobelets_ and hence their common expressions _jouer des gobelets_, and _joueur des gobelets_, which they use when speaking of jugglers.

In all ages of the world there have been men who excited great wonder by extraordinary strength. Instances of this have been already collected; but they do not belong to my present subject[304]. I can, however, prove that above fifteen hundred years ago there were people who, by applying a knowledge of the mechanical powers to their bodies, performed feats which astonished every ignorant spectator; though it is certain that any sound man of common strength could perform the same by employing the like means. Of these one may say with Celsus, “Neque hercule scientiam præcipuam habent hi, sed audaciam usu ipso confirmatam.”

About the beginning of the last century, such a strong man, or Samson, as he called himself, a native of Germany, travelled over almost all Europe; and his pretended art has been mentioned by so many writers, that we may conclude it had not been often exhibited before; and that it was then considered as new. His name was John Charles von Eckeberg; he was born at Harzgerode in Anhalt; and at that time was thirty-three years of age. When he fixed himself between a couple of posts, on any level place, two or more horses were not able to draw him from his position; he could break ropes asunder, and lift a man up on his knee while he lay extended on the ground. But what excited the greatest astonishment was, that he suffered large stones to be broke on his breast with a hammer, or a smith to forge iron on an anvil placed above it.

This last feat was exhibited even in the third century, by Firmus or Firmius, who, in the time of Aurelian, endeavoured to make himself emperor in Egypt. He was a native of Seleucia in Syria; espoused the cause of Zenobia, the celebrated queen of Palmyra; and was at length executed publicly by order of the emperor Aurelian. It is of this Firmus, and not of another, who a century after was overcome in Africa by the father of the emperor Theodosius, that Vopiscus speaks where he relates that he could suffer iron to be forged on an anvil placed on his breast. For this purpose he lay on his back; but he put himself in such a position, by resting with his feet and shoulders against some support, that his whole body formed an arch; so that he seemed rather to be suspended than to lie at full length[305]. This art, which is explained and illustrated by Desaguliers[306] and Professor Kuhn[307] of Dantzic, has now become so common that it is often exhibited without occasioning much surprise.

In the works of the ancients, rope-dancers are frequently mentioned. The passages where they occur have been collected by various authors, though never completely; and I am inclined to think that those who have seen many performers of this kind would be able to clear up some that are obscure. I have seen many myself; but I have forgot the greater part of what I observed; and there are other reasons also which prevent me from undertaking that task: I dread the reproach of “multum agendo nihil agis.” That I may not, however, pass over this subject entirely, I shall present the reader with what follows[308]. We meet with various appellations given to rope-dancers, which do not, as some have imagined, point out different kinds, but allude only to new-invented arts, leaps, or dexterities, which, while recommended by novelty, were much wondered at, though they were afterwards imitated by all. To these belong the _schœnobatæ_, _oribatæ_, _neurobatæ_, _petaminarii_, _funambuli_, &c. Some of the ancient rope-dancers seem to have used a balancing-pole, or at least to have had weights in their hands to preserve an equipoise[309]. It is certain also that rope-dancers were not wanting in the middle ages. In the year 1237 they were very common in Italy[310]; and in 1393 there were some of them at Augsburg, who exhibited their dexterity on the rope, and received from each spectator three German halfpence[311].

To place men upon the shoulders of each other in such a manner that every row consists of a man fewer, till they form a pyramid ending in a single person, upon whose head a boy often stands with his feet upwards, is likewise an ancient piece of dexterity. This exhibition is varied many ways; and on that account it is difficult to form even conjectures respecting it, especially as the description given of it by a Roman poet is very unintelligible[312].

I am however still less acquainted with an art in which hoops and wheels were employed by the _petauristæ_, who excited great astonishment among the populace. The first part of the art may have consisted in nothing more than the varied contortions and tumbling which we still see practised by children trained for that purpose. Cilano explains a well-known passage of Manilius, as if the performers had darted through suspended iron hoops, made often red-hot. Of this I entertain less doubt than how we ought to understand the _corpora jactata petauro_ of Juvenal[313]; and the _corpora valido excussa petauro_ of Manilius[314], which many have attempted to explain already. At any rate this wheel was different from that upon which a female dancer, as mentioned by Xenophon, wrote and read while it turned round with great velocity[315].

The art of exhibiting various feats of horsemanship, which has been practised so much in modern times, seems to have come first from the East. At any rate, those performers in that way who, in the thirteenth century, were at the Byzantine court, and who travelled all over Europe, came from Egypt. They could stand on the horses when at a gallop; mount and dismount while on full speed at the chase; tumble on horseback, and do many other things equally extraordinary[316]. At the end of the sixteenth century, an Italian, who had learned this art while a slave in Turkey, went about exhibiting his dexterity in various parts of Europe. Montagne saw him at Rome in 1581[317]; and the year following he was at Paris[318]. Some of these feats were performed by the ancient _desultores_.

Whether the ancients taught horses, dogs, birds, and other animals, to perform various tricks which are frequently exhibited at present for money, I do not know; but it is certain that what they made the elephant, which undoubtedly is the most sagacious and tractable of all animals, perform, exceeds everything yet known of the kind. Without repeating what has been so often related, I shall only mention the elephant which walked upon a rope backwards and forwards, as well as up and down; and which Galba first caused to be shown to the Roman people. After this, so much confidence was placed in the dexterity of the animal, that a person sat on an elephant’s back while he walked across the theatre upon a rope extended from the one side to the other. Lipsius, who has collected the testimonies, thinks they are so strong that they cannot be doubted[319].

The training of horses to obey a private signal, imperceptible to the most attentive spectator, and to perform actions which appear, to those unacquainted with the art, to display rational faculties, I have never found mentioned in the works of the ancients. That the Sybarites however taught their horses to dance to the sound of music, is asserted by a variety of authors[320]. In the sixteenth century, dogs trained in the like manner excited great wonder[321].

In the year 1766, an Englishman, named Wildman, made himself much known by taming or training bees, in such a manner that they not only followed him wherever he went, but settled even on his face and hands without stinging him, and seemed as if obedient to his orders[322]. Some years after, a person who practised the like art, travelled about through Germany, and gave himself out to be Wildman; but M. Riem proved that he was not Wildman, and published the secret by which he acquired so much power over these insects[323]. I cannot say whether the ancients were acquainted with this art; but I shall here remark, that it was known in the kingdom of Galam, at Senegal, a hundred years before Wildman; for when Brue, a Frenchman, was there in 1698, he was visited by a man who called himself the king of the bees[324]. “Let his secret,” says that traveller, “consist in what it may, this much is certain; that they followed him wherever he went, as sheep do their shepherd. His whole body, and particularly his cap, was so covered with them that they appeared like a swarm just settled. When he departed they went along with him; for besides those on his body, he was surrounded by thousands which always attended him[325].”

In modern times, persons destitute of arms and hands, or who have these limbs formed very imperfectly, but who possess the art of supplying that want by the use of their feet and toes, show themselves sometimes for money; and as they entertain the spectators by exciting their wonder, they deserve from them that support which they are not able to obtain in any other manner. Instances of such people who had acquired this art, have been very common within the last two centuries[326]; but in the works of the ancients I have found only one. An Indian king, named Porus, sent to the emperor Augustus an embassy with presents, among which were some rare animals, and a man without arms, who with his feet, however, could bend a bow; discharge arrows; and put a trumpet to his mouth and blow it. Dio Cassius confesses that he did not know how this was possible; but Strabo refers for his authority to Nicolaus of Damascus, who saw all the presents as they passed through Antioch[327]. Had this deformed person, whom Strabo compares to a Hermes, travelled about, according to the modern practice, as a show, he would have been better known, and in all probability his example would have induced others to imitate his art[328]. Manilius says, however, that there were people, who, in playing at ball, could use their feet with as much dexterity as their hands, who could catch the ball with them, and again throw it back; but the poet, perhaps, did not allude to the small hand-ball, but to the large one which is struck with the fist, and which may be stopped also by the foot. Besides, the passage is read and explained different ways[329].

Figures or puppets, which appear to move of themselves, were employed formerly to work miracles; but they could hardly be used for that purpose at present in any catholic country of Europe, though they still serve to amuse the vulgar. Among these are the _marionettes_[330], as they are called, the different parts of which are put in motion imperceptibly by a thread. Of a still more ingenious construction are those which are moved by the turning of a cylinder, as is the case in the machines with which some of the old miners in Germany earn a livelihood; but the most ingenious of all are those which are kept in continual movement for a certain time, by the help of wheels with a weight or spring. The latter are called _automata_; and, when they represent human figures, _androides_. Under the former general name are comprehended our watches, the most useful of all, and also jacks[331], with many others. The latter appellation is given to small puppets, which, when their inner works have been wound up, run upon the table or pavement, and as they advance move their head, eyes, and hands. They have been exhibited sometimes under the name of _courrante Margarethe_, which gave rise perhaps to the word _marionette_.

The proper _marionettes_ are very old. They were common among the Greeks, and from them they were brought to the Romans. They were known by the name of _neurospasta_, and were much used at their shows. Aristotle speaks of some which moved their head, eyes, hands and limbs in a very natural manner[332]. They are mentioned with equal precision by Galen, Xenophon, Antoninus, Horace, Gellius, and others. To these belong the _phalli_, which were carried round during the festivals of Osiris and Bacchus, and of which one member only, that properly meant by the name, and which was almost as large as the whole body, moved upon certain threads being pulled[333]. Count Caylus has given an engraving of the body of a small puppet, made of ivory or bone; but he requires too much when he desires us to consider that fragment, merely on his word, as a piece of Greek or Roman antiquity. He at least ought to have informed us where it was found, and by what means he procured it. In regard to such articles, it is as easy to deceive as to be led into an error; and objects of bone are certainly of no great duration[334].

The question concerning the antiquity of automata, properly so called, which are moved by wheels, weights and springs, I shall leave to those who have read the works of the ancient mathematicians, and who may be desirous of writing on the history of mechanics. As far as I know, the ancients were not acquainted with the art of making them, unless some propositions of Ctesibius, mentioned by Vitruvius, allude to that subject. When clocks were brought to perfection, some artists added to them figures, which at the time of striking performed various movements; and as they succeeded in these, some attempted to make, detached from clocks, single figures, which either moved certain limbs, or advanced forward and ran. In the middle of the sixteenth century, when Hans Bullmann[335], a padlock-maker at Nuremberg, constructed figures of men and women which moved backwards and forwards by clock-work, beat a drum, and played on the lute according to musical time, they excited universal astonishment as a new invention. It was about the same period that watches came into use. The accounts however which speak of much older automata deserve to be examined with more attention.

The most ancient of all are undoubtedly the tripods constructed by Vulcan[336], which being furnished with wheels, advanced forwards to be used, and again returned to their places. But what was impossible to the gods of Homer? An unbeliever might conjecture that these tripods, which are mentioned also by Aristotle[337], and which perhaps were only a kind of small tables or dumb-waiters, had wheels so contrived that they could be put in motion and driven to a distance on the smallest impulse, like the fire-pans in our country beer-houses, at which the boors light their pipes.

That Dædalus made statues which could not only walk, but which it was necessary to tie, in order that they might not move, is related by Plato[338], Aristotle, and others. The latter speaks of a wooden Venus, and remarks that the secret of its motion consisted in quicksilver having been poured into it. What the author here means I cannot comprehend; but I do not imagine that this Venus threw itself topsy-turvy backwards, like the Chinese puppets. However this may be, it is astonishing that the Chinese should have fallen upon the invention of giving motion to puppets by means of quicksilver, and in so ingenious a manner, that Muschenbroek[339] thought it worth his while to describe their whole construction, and to illustrate it by figures. But before this method was known in Europe, Kircher had an idea of putting a small waggon in motion by adding to it a pipe filled with quicksilver, and heating it with a candle placed below it[340]. The account of Aristotle is more mysterious, for he does not inform us how the quicksilver acted.

Callistratus, another writer, who was the tutor of Demosthenes, gives us to understand that the statues of Dædalus were made to move by the mechanical powers[341]. But what has been asserted by Palæphatus, and by Gedoyn[342], Banier, Goguet, and others among the moderns, is most probable. The first statues of the Greeks were imitations of those of the Egyptians, for the most part clumsy figures, with their eyes shut, their arms hanging down close to the body on each side, and their feet joined together. Those made by Dædalus had their eyes open, as well as their feet and hands free; and the artist gave them such a posture, that they seemed either reclining, or appeared as if ready to walk or to run. As Anacreon[343], struck with wonder, exclaimed when he saw a waxen image of his favourite object, “Begone, wax, thou wilt soon speak!” the astonished Greeks in like manner cried out, when they beheld the statues of Dædalus, “They will soon walk.” The next generation affirmed that they really walked; and their posterity, adding still to what was told them, asserted that they would have run had they not been bound.

Equally imperfect is the account given of the wooden pigeon constructed by Archytas of Tarentum. We are informed that it flew; but when it had once settled, it could not again take flight. The latter is not incredible; but even if we allow that aërostatic machines were then known, it is impossible to believe the former. At present one cannot determine with any probability, what piece of mechanism gave rise to this relation[344]. The head of Albertus Magnus, which is said not only to have moved, but to have spoken, is too little known for any opinion to be formed concerning it. The construction of it must have been very ingenious and complex, if it be true that he was employed upon it thirty years[345].

In the fourteenth and following centuries, automata, as I have said, were frequently made. Among these was the iron fly of John Müller or Molitor, or, as he is sometimes called, Regiomontanus, which is said to have flown about; and his artificial eagle, which flew to meet the Emperor Maximilian on his arrival at Nuremberg, June the 7th, 1470. None of the contemporary writers, however, though they often speak of this very learned man, make the least mention of these pieces of mechanism; and it is probable that the whole tale originated with Peter Ramus[346], who never was at Nuremberg till the year 1571. J. W. Baier[347] endeavours to prove that the above-mentioned fly, moved by wheel-work, leaped about upon a table; and that the eagle perched upon the town-gate, stretched out its wings on the emperor’s approach, and saluted him by an inclination of its body. We know that Charles V., after his abdication, amused himself during the latter period of his life with automata of various kinds[348].

The most ingenious, or at least the most celebrated automata, were those made by Vaucanson, which he exhibited publicly at Paris, for the first time, in 1738. One of them, which represented a flute-player sitting, performed twelve tunes, and, as we are assured, by wind issuing from its mouth into a German-flute, the holes of which it opened and shut with its fingers. The second was a standing figure, which in the like manner played on the Provençal shepherd’s pipe, held in its left hand, and with the right beat upon a drum or _tambour de Basque_. The third was a duck, of the natural size, which moved its wings, exhibited all the gestures of that animal, quacked like a duck, drank water, ate corn, and then after a little time let drop behind it something that resembled the excrement of a duck[349]. These pieces must have been often imitated. I saw some of the like kind in the year 1764, at the palace of Zarsko-Selo, near Petersburg, and was told that they had been purchased from Vaucanson[350]. As far as I can remember, the tambourin was damaged. I saw there also a regiment of soldiers, which went through their exercise, moved by wheel-work[351].

In the year 1752, one Du Moulin, a silversmith, travelled about through Germany with automata like those of Vaucanson. In 1754, he wished to dispose of them to the margrave of Bayreuth; but he was obliged to pawn them in Nuremberg, at the house of Pfluger, who offered to sell them for 3000 florins, the sum lent upon them. They were afterwards purchased by counsellor Beireis, at Helmstadt, who kindly showed them to me. It is much to be regretted that the machinery of them is greatly deranged; the flute-player emits only some very faint tones; but the duck eats, drinks, and moves still. The ribs, which are of wire, had been covered with duck’s feathers, so as to imitate nature; and as these are now lost, one can see better the interior construction; respecting which I shall only observe, that the motion is communicated by means of a cylinder and fine chains, like that of a watch, all proceeding through the feet of the duck, which are of the usual size. Nicolai[352] says that Du Moulin came to Petersburg in 1755, and died at Moscow in 1765. It is probable that he made the automata which I saw in Russia. Those which he left behind him at Nuremberg seem either not to have been completed, or to have been designedly spoiled by him; for they appeared to have defects which could not be ascribed to any accident. M. Beireis however has begun to cause them to be repaired.

Of all these automata, the duck I confess appeared to me the most ingenious; but I can prove that like pieces of mechanism were made before the time of Vaucanson. We are told by Labat[353], that the French general De Gennes, who, about the year 1688, defended the colony of St. Christopher against the English, constructed a peacock which could walk about, pick up from the ground corn thrown before it, digest it, according to appearance, and afterwards drop something that resembled excrement. This man was of an ancient noble family in Brittany, which had however been so reduced, that the father carried on a handicraft. The son became acquainted with the marquis de Vivonne, who, on account of his promising talents, bred him to the sea. He rose to be commander of a vessel, conducted a squadron to the Straits of Magellan, where it was intended to form a colony, and obtained in Cayenne a tract of land, which he got erected into a county, under the name of Oyac. He invented machines of various kinds useful in navigation and gunnery, and, as we are told, constructed clocks that moved without weights or springs.

The flute-player also of Vaucanson was not the first of its kind. In the beginning of the sixteenth century, the anonymous author of that well-known poem Zodiacus Vitæ, saw at Rome a figure made in the like manner by a potter. It is much to be regretted that no account is given of its construction.

Vidi ego dum Romæ, decimo regnante Leone, Essem, opus a figulo factum, juvenisque figuram, Efflantem angusto validum ventum oris hiatu[354].

I shall here beg leave to say a few words respecting an object of juggling, which, however old it may be, still excites astonishment, and has often imposed upon the credulity of men of learning[355]: I mean those speaking machines, which, according to appearance, answer various questions proposed to them, sometimes in different languages, sing, and even blow a huntsman’s horn. The figure, or only a head, is often placed upon a box, the forepart of which, for the better deception, is filled with a pair of bellows, a sounding-board, cylinder, and pipes, supposed to represent the organs of speech. At other times the machine is only like a peruke-maker’s block, hung round with a Turkish dress, furnished with a pair of arms, and placed before a table, and sometimes the puppet stands upon the table, or against a wall. The sounds are heard through a speaking-trumpet, which the figure holds in its mouth.

Many jugglers are so impudent as to assert that the voice does not proceed from a man, but is produced by machinery, in the same manner as the music of an organ. Some, like the last whom I saw, are more modest or timorous, and give evasive answers to the questions asked them respecting the cause of the voice, with as much art as those who exhibit with balls and cups. Concerning these speaking machines, however, different opinions are entertained. Some affirm that the voice issues from the machine; others, that the juggler answers himself, by speaking as ventriloquists do, or by having the power to alter his voice; and some believe that the answers are given by a man somewhere concealed. The violence with which these opinions are maintained exposes the juggler often to the danger of losing his life; for, when the illusion is detected, the populace, who in part suffer themselves willingly to be deceived, and who even pay the juggler for his deception, imagine that they have a right to avenge themselves for being imposed on. The machines are sometimes broken; and the owners of them are harshly treated as impostors. For my part, I do not see why a juggler, with a speaking machine, is a more culpable impostor than he who pretends to breathe out flames and to swallow boiling oil, or to make puppets speak, as in the Chinese shadows. The spectators pay for the pleasure which they receive from a well-concealed deception, and with greater satisfaction the more difficult it is for them to discover it. But the person who speaks or sings through a puppet, is so well hid, that people of considerable penetration have imagined that such concealment was impossible. At present this art is well known.

Either a child or a woman is concealed in the juggler’s box; or some person, placed in a neighbouring apartment, speaks into the end of a pipe which proceeds through the wall to the puppet, and which conveys the answers to the spectators. The juggler gives every necessary assistance to the person by signs previously agreed on. I was once shown, in company with M. Stock, upon promising secrecy, the assistant in another apartment, standing before the pipe, with a card in his hand on which the signs were marked; and he had been brought into the house so privately that the landlady was ignorant of the circumstance. The juggler, however, acknowledged that he did not exhibit without fear; and that he would not venture to stay long at a place like Göttingen, or to return with his Turks, though the populace were so civil as to permit him to depart peaceably with what he had gained.

The invention of causing statues to speak by this method seems so simple, that one can scarcely help conjecturing that it was employed in the earliest periods to support superstition; and many have imagined that the greater part of the oracles spoke in the same manner[356]. This, however, is false, as has been proved by the Jesuit Baltus, and the anonymous author of a Reply to Fontenelle’s History of Oracles[357]. It appears that the pagan priests, like our jugglers, were afraid that their deceptions, if long practised, might be discovered. They considered it therefore as more secure to deliver the answers themselves; or cause them to be delivered by women instructed for that purpose, or by writing, or by any other means. We read, nevertheless, that idols[358] and the images of saints once spoke; for at present the latter will not venture to open their mouths. If their votaries ever really heard a voice proceed from the statue, it may have been produced in the before-mentioned manner.

Whether the head of Orpheus spoke in the island of Lesbos, or, what is more probable, the answers were conveyed to it by the priests, as was the case with the tripod at Delphi, cannot with certainty be determined. That the impostor Alexander, however, caused his Æsculapius to speak in this manner, is expressly related by Lucian[359]. He took, says that author, instead of a pipe, the gullet of a crane, and transmitted the voice through it to the mouth of the statue. In the fourth century, when bishop Theophilus broke to pieces the statues at Alexandria, he found some which were hollow, and placed in such a manner against a wall that a priest could slip unperceived behind them, and speak to the ignorant populace through their mouths[360]. I am acquainted with a passage which seems to imply that Cassiodorus, who, it is well known, constructed various pieces of mechanism, made also speaking machines; but I must confess that I do not think I understand the words perfectly[361].

That people ventured more than a hundred years ago to exhibit speaking machines for money, has been proved by Reitz in his annotations to Lucian, where he produces the instance of one Thomas Irson, an Englishman, whom he himself knew, and whose art excited much wonder in king Charles II. and his whole court. When the astonishment, however, became general, one of the pages discovered, in the adjoining chamber, a popish priest who answered in the same language, through a pipe, the questions proposed to the wooden head by whispering into its ear. This deception Irson often related himself[362].

I shall now add only a few observations respecting the Chinese shadows, which I have occasionally mentioned before. This ingenious amusement consists in moving, by pegs fastened to them, small figures cut out of pasteboard, the joints of which are all pliable, behind a piece of fine painted gauze placed before an opening in a curtain, in such a manner as to exhibit various scenes, according to pleasure; while the opening covered with gauze is illuminated, towards the apartment where the spectators sit, by means of light reflected back from a mirror; so that the shadows of the pegs are concealed. When it is requisite to cause a figure to perform a variety of movements, it is necessary to have several persons, who must be exceedingly expert. When a snake is to be represented gliding, the figure, which consists of delicate rings, must be directed at least by three assistants.

This amusement, which one can hardly see the first time without pleasure, is really a Chinese invention. Many years ago, I have seen Chinese boxes on which such moveable figures were apparent only when the box was held against the light. In China, these shadows are used at the well-known feast of lanterns; and a description of them may be found in the works of some travellers. That they were common also in Egypt, we are informed by Prosper Alpinus[363], who admired them much; but he was not able to discover the method by which they were produced, as it was kept a secret. I was told by an Italian, who exhibited them at Göttingen some years ago, that they were first imitated, from the Chinese, at Bologna.

FOOTNOTES

[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.

[324] The voyage of Brue is in Labat’s Afrique Occidentale, iv.

[325] [A curious exhibition of this kind has been made public for several years in the Strand, viz. the “industrious fleas.” These noxious animals are here seen to draw and drive a coach and four; fire off a small cannon; and various other performances of a similar kind.]

[326] Several instances of the like kind may be found also in Monstrorum Historia Memorabilis a J. G. Schenkio a Grafenberg filio, Francof. 1609, 4to, p. 28 _et seq._ One of the most curious is that of Thomas Schweicker, born at Halle in Prussian Saxony, in the year 1586. Camerarius saw him not only write, but even make a pen with his feet.--TRANS.

[327] Strabo, lib. xv. p. 1048. ed. Almel.--Dio Cassius, lib. liv. p. 739. Suetonius, Eutropius, Eusebius and Orosius, speak of this embassy, but make no mention of the presents.

[328] [In modern times the idle portion of the public has been gratified by the exhibition of the Siamese twins; the diminutive monster Tom Thumb; and quite recently a child with three legs. The birth of such monsters is equivalent to a legacy or fortune to the parents, who by their exhibitions realise large sums: the morbid taste of the public, especially the weaker portion, for such sights is truly deplorable.]

[329] Man. Astron. lib. v. 165.

[330] Frisch derives this word from _morio_, a fool or buffoon.

[331] This piece of kitchen furniture was known in the middle of the sixteenth century. Montagne saw one at Brixen, in Tyrol, in the year 1580, and wrote a description of it in his Journal, as a new invention. He says it consisted entirely of wheels; that it was kept in motion by a heavy piece of iron, as clocks are by a weight, and that when wound up in the like manner, it turned the meat for a whole hour. He had before seen, in some other place, another driven by smoke.--Reise, i. pp. 155, 249. The latter kind seem to be somewhat older. Scappi, cook to pope Pius V., gave a figure of one in his book Opera di M. Bartolomeo Scappi, printed at Venice 1570, which is exceedingly scarce. I lately saw a copy, which, instead of eighteen, had twenty-four engravings. It was printed twice afterwards at the same place, viz. in 1571 and 1605, in quarto. The third edition says, “con due aggiunte, cio é il Trinciante et il Maestro di casa.” Bayle seems to confound this book with that of Platina De Honesta Voluptate, or to think that the latter was the real author of it. This however cannot be, as there were more than a hundred years between the periods when Scappi and Platina lived. Platina died in 1481, and not in 1581, as we read in Bayle.

[332] De Mundo. cap. vi.

[333] Herodot. ii. 48. p. 127.--Lucian. de Syria Dea, 16, ed. Bipont. ix. p. 99.

[334] Recueil des Antiquit. iv. p. 259.

[335] Doppelmayer, p. 285.

[336] Iliad, xviii. 373. It deserves to be remarked, that there were also such τρίποδες αὐτόματοι at the banquet of Iarchas. See Philostrat. Opera, ed. Olearii, pp. 117, 240.

[337] Polit. i. 3.

[338] In his Menon, p. 426.--Euthyphron, pp. 8, 11.

[339] Introd. in Philos. Nat. i. p. 143.

[340] Physiologia Kircheriana, fol. p. 69.

[341] In Philostrati Opera, ed. Olearii, p. 899.

[342] In Mém. de l’Acad. des Inscr. xiii. p. 274.

[343] Ode xxvii.

[344] Aulus Gellius, x. 12.

[345] See Naudé’s Apology, Bayle’s Dictionary, &c. Thomas Aquinas is said to have been so frightened when he saw this head, that he broke it to pieces, and Albertus thereupon exclaimed, “Periit opus triginta annorum!”

[346] Schol. Mathemat. lib. ii. p. 65.

[347] Dissertat. de Regiomontani Aquila et Musca Ferrea. Altorfi, 1709.--See Mémoires de Trevoux, 1710, Juillet, p. 1283.--Doppelmayer, p. 23.--Fabricii Bibl. Med. Ætat. iv. p. 355.--Heilbronner Hist. Math. p. 504.

[348] Strada De Bello Belgico. Mogunt. 1651, 4to, p. 8. He calls the artist Jannellus Turrianus Cremonensis.

[349] In the year 1738, Le Méchanisme du Fluteur Automate, par Vaucanson, was printed at Paris, in a thin 4to. It contains only a short description of the flute-player, which is copied into the Encyclopédie, i. p. 448, under the article Androide. The duck, as far as I know, has been nowhere described.

[350] Vaucanson died at Paris in 1782.

[351] [The publisher is in possession of an elegantly formed mechanical bird-cage, in which two artificial bullfinches wheel about on a perch, flutter their wings, and move their beaks, while emitting musical sounds in imitation of their natural note. A fountain constructed of spiral glass plays in the centre. Beneath the cage is a clock which sets the whole in motion hourly, for three or four minutes; but it may be set going independently, like a musical snuff-box. It is presumed to have been made by Vaucanson about a hundred years ago, and was at one time a principal attraction at Weeks’s celebrated Museum, where that singular piece of mechanism the Tarantula spider was first exhibited.]

[352] Nicolai, Reise, i. p. 287.

[353] Nouveau Voyage aux Iles de l’Amerique. A la Haye 1724, 2 vols. 4to, ii. pp. 298, 384. From his county he was called Count de Gennes.

[354] Zodiacus Vitæ, xi. 846.

[355] See a small treatise Ueber H. D. Muller’s Redende Maschine, und über redende Maschinen überhaupt. Nurnberg, 1788, 8vo.--Algem. Teutsches Biblioth. vol. lxxxvii. p. 473. The Speaking Figure and the Automaton Chess-player exposed and detected. London, 1784, 8vo.--[This celebrated chess-playing automaton, invented by M. Vankempelin, was repaired and exhibited in London in 1820, by the ingenious mechanician Maelzel, with considerable success. The figure and machinery were always submitted to the inspection of the visitors, and shifted along the floor in various directions before the game commenced, and the deception was so adroitly managed as to escape the detection of the most scrutinizing. The proprietor always took care to secure the best chess-player in the town before he commenced operations, the wonder therefore was greatly increased by the superiority of the automaton’s play. Mr. Lewis directed it in London. It is now generally admitted that a boy was concealed inside.]

[356] Van Dale De Oraculis. Amstelod. 1700, 4to, i. 10, p. 222.

[357] Réponse à l’Histoire des Oracles de M. de Fontenelle.

[358] A few instances are related by Livy, Valerius Maximus, and Plutarch. Among the fables of the Christian church they are more numerous.

[359] Vol. v. p. 90. editio Bipont.

[360] Theodoreti Hist. Eccles. v. 22.

[361] Cassiodori Variar. i. ep. 45.

[362] [_Speaking Automaton._--There is a piece of mechanism now exhibiting to the public at the Egyptian Hall--the work of Professor Faber, of Vienna, and the result, as he states, of twenty-five years of labour and preparation. The name which he has given to this product of his ingenuity is the Euphonia; and the work, as that name implies, is another of those many combinations which have attempted, by the anatomical and physiological study of the structures that contribute to the human voice, to attain to an imitation of that organ as regards both sound and articulation. As an example of inductive and mechanical skill this exhibition is well deserving of attention. The professor himself, by an arrangement of bellows-pipes, pedal and keys, which he plays somewhat like the keys of a piano, prompts the discourse of his automaton; which certainly does enunciate both sounds and words. When we entered the room we found it singing to a select society. It requires all our sense of the ingenuity and perseverance which have been bestowed on the work to induce our assent to the proposition which calls the voice human; but undoubtedly it is a remarkable result of contriving skill and scientific patience.--_Athæneum._]

[363] Historia Ægypti Natural. Lugd. Bat. 1735, 4to, p. 60.

ARTIFICIAL ICE. COOLING LIQUORS.

The art of preserving snow for cooling liquors during the summer, in warm countries, was known in the earliest ages. This practice is mentioned by Solomon[364], and proofs of it are so numerous in the works of the Greeks and the Romans, that it is unnecessary for me to quote them, especially as they have been collected by others[365]. How the repositories for keeping it were constructed, we are not expressly told; but what I know on the subject I shall here lay before the reader.

That the snow was preserved in pits or trenches, is asserted by many[366]. When Alexander the Great besieged the city of Petra, he caused thirty trenches to be dug and filled with snow, which was covered with oak branches, and which kept in that manner for a long time[367]. Plutarch says that a covering of chaff and coarse cloth is sufficient[368]; and at present a like method is pursued in Portugal. Where the snow has been collected in a deep gulf, some grass or green sods, covered with dung from the sheep-pens, is thrown over it; and under these it is so well preserved, that the whole summer through it is sent the distance of sixty Spanish miles to Lisbon[369].

When the ancients therefore wished to have cooling liquors, they either drank the melted snow or put some of it in their wine, or they placed jars filled with wine in the snow, and suffered it to cool there as long as they thought proper. It appears that in these trenches it could not remain long clean; on the contrary, it was generally so full of chaff, that the snow-water was somewhat coloured with it, and had a taste of it, and for this reason it was necessary to strain either it or the wine that had been cooled by it[370].

That ice also was preserved for the like purpose, is probable from the testimony of various authors[371]; but it appears not to have been used so much in warm countries as in the northern. Even at present snow is employed in Italy, Spain, and Portugal; but in Persia, ice[372]. I have never anywhere found an account of Grecian or Roman ice-houses. By the writers on agriculture they are not mentioned.

Mankind however soon conceived the idea of cooling water without snow or ice, from having remarked that it became cold more speedily when it had been previously boiled, or at least warmed, and then put in a vessel among snow, or in a place much exposed to the air. Pliny seems to give this as an invention of Nero[373]; and a jocular expression in Suetonius[374] makes it at any rate probable that he was fond of water cooled by this method; but it appears to be much older. It seems to have been known even to Hippocrates: at least Galen[375] believes so. And Aristotle[376] was undoubtedly acquainted with it; for he says that some were accustomed, when they wished water to become soon cold, to place it first in the sun and suffer it to grow warm. He relates also that, the fishermen near the Black Sea poured boiling water over the reeds which they used in fishing on the ice to cause them to freeze sooner. Galen[377] on this subject is still more precise. He informs us that the above practice was not so much used in Italy and Greece, where snow could be procured, as in Egypt and other warm countries, where neither snow nor cool springs were to be found. The water after it had been boiled was put into earthen vessels or jars, and exposed in the evening on the upper part of the house to the night air. In the morning these vessels were put into the earth (perhaps in a pit), moistened on the outside with water, and then bound round with fresh or green plants, by which means the water could be preserved cool throughout the whole day. Athenæus[378], who gives a like account from a book of Protagorides, remarks, that the pitchers filled with water, which had become warm by standing all day long in the sun, were kept continually wet during the night, by servants destined to that office, and in the morning were bound round with straw. In the island of Cimolus[379], water which had become warm in the day-time was put into earthen jars, and deposited in a cool cellar, where it grew as cold as snow. It was generally believed therefore, that water which had been warmed or boiled, was soonest cooled, as well as acquired a greater degree of refrigeration; and on this account boiled water is mentioned so often in the works of the ancients[380].

The same opinion prevails at present in the southern countries of Asia, and people there still let their water boil before they expose it to the air to cool[381]. The experiments however which have been made on this subject by philosophers, have proved very different in the result. When one indeed places boiling and cold water, all other circumstances being equal, in frosty air, the latter will become ice before the former has cooled; but when one exposes to the cold, water that has been boiled, and unboiled water of equal temperatures, the former will be converted into ice somewhat sooner.

The experiments made by Mariotte[382], Perrault[383], the Academy del Cimento[384], Marian[385] and others, showed no perceptible difference in the time of freezing, between boiled and unboiled water; but the former produced ice harder and clearer, the latter ice more full of blisters. In later times, Dr. Black of Edinburgh has, from his experiments, asserted the contrary. Boiled water, he says, becomes ice sooner than unboiled, if the latter be left at perfect rest; but if the latter be stirred sometimes with a chocolate stick, it is converted into ice as soon as the former. This difference he explains in the following manner:--Some motion promotes congelation; this arises in the boiled water through its re-imbibing air; and therefore it must necessarily freeze before the unboiled, provided the latter be kept at perfect rest. Fahrenheit had before remarked that water not moved, would show a cold several degrees below the freezing-point, without becoming ice[386].

M. Lichtenberg, with whom I conversed on these contradictory results, assured me that he was not surprised at this difference in the experiments. The time of congelation is regulated by circumstances, with which philosophers are not yet sufficiently acquainted. A certain, but not every degree of stirring hastens it; so that every icy particle which is formed on the side of the vessel, or which falls from the atmosphere, may convert the water sufficiently cooled into ice instantaneously; and such unavoidable accidents must, where all other circumstances are equal, cause a great difference in the period of freezing.

I am inclined to think that the cooling of water, in ancient times, of which I have already spoken, is not to be ascribed so much to the boiling as to the jars being kept continually wet, and to the air to which it was exposed. A false opinion seems therefore to have prevailed respecting the cause; and because it was considered to be the boiling, many have not mentioned the real cause, which appeared to them only to afford a trifling assistance, though it has been remarked both by Galen and Athenæus. We know at present that coolness is produced by evaporation. A thermometer kept wet in the open air falls as long as evaporation continues[387]. With sulphuric æther, and still better with that of nitre, which evaporates very rapidly, water may be made to freeze even in the middle of summer; and Cavallo saw in summer a Fahrenheit’s thermometer, which stood at 64°, fall in two minutes, by means of æther, to +3, that is to 29° below the freezing-point[388].

On this principle depends the art of making ice at Calcutta and other parts of India, between 25° 30′ and 23° 30′ of north latitude, where natural ice is never seen unless imported. Trenches two feet deep, dug in an open plain, are strewed over with dry straw; and in these are placed small shallow unglazed earthen pans, filled with water at sunset. The ice which is produced in them is carried away before sunrise next morning, and conveyed to an ice-cellar fifteen feet deep; where it is carefully covered with straw to be preserved from the external heat and air. A great deal, in this process, depends upon the state of the atmosphere. When calm, pure and serene, it is most favourable to the congelation; but when the winds are variable, or the weather heavy and cloudy, no ice is formed; and the same is often the case when the nights are raw and cold[389].

It was once believed that this freezing was occasioned principally by the water having been boiled; but it seems to be owing much rather to evaporation[390]. It is not however said that the vessels are kept continually wet on the outside, but that they are unglazed, and so porous or little burnt, that the water oozes through them; and on that account their exterior surface appears always moist[391]. By vessels of this kind the trouble of wetting is saved. What has been said respecting the influence of the weather serves, in some measure, to confirm my conjecture. The more it favours evaporation, the ice is not only formed more easily, but it is better; and when evaporation is prevented by the wind or the weather, no ice is produced. The latest accounts how ice is made at Benares, say expressly that boiled water is not employed; and that all those vessels, the pores of which are stopped by having been used, do not yield ice so soon or so good. In porcelain vessels none is produced; and this is the case also when the straw is wet[392].

Another method of cooling water also seems to have been known to Plutarch. It consisted in throwing into it small pebbles or plates of lead[393]. The author refers to the testimony of Aristotle; but this circumstance I cannot find in the works of that philosopher which have been preserved. It seems to be too unintelligible to admit of any opinion being formed upon it; and the explanation given by Plutarch conveys still less information than the proposition itself. This is the case, in general, with almost all the propositions of the ancients. We indeed learn from the questions that they were acquainted with many phænomena; but the answers scarcely ever repay the trouble which one must employ in order to understand them. They seldom contain any further illustration; and never a satisfactory explanation.

It appears that the practice of cooling liquors, at the tables of the great, was not usual in any country besides Italy and the neighbouring states, before the end of the sixteenth century. In the middle of that century there were no ice-cellars in France; for when Bellon relates, in the Account of his travels, in 1553, how snow and ice were preserved at Constantinople throughout the whole summer, for the purpose of cooling sherbet, he assures us that the like method might be adopted by his countrymen; because he had found ice-cellars in countries warmer than France. The word _glacière_ also is not to be met with in the older dictionaries; and it does not occur even in that of Monet, printed in 1635[394]. Champier, the physician who attended Francis I. when he had a conference with the emperor Charles V. and pope Paul III. at Nice, saw the Spaniards and Italians put snow, which they caused to be brought from the neighbouring mountains, into their wine in order to cool it. That practice, which excited his astonishment, he declared to be unhealthful; and this proves that in his time it had not been introduced at the French court[395].

Grand d’Aussy quotes an anecdote, related by Brantome, from which he forms the same conclusion. The dauphin, son of Francis I., being accustomed to drink a great deal of water at table, even when he was overheated, Donna Agnes Beatrix Pacheco, one of the ladies of the court, by way of precaution, sent to Portugal for earthen vessels, which would render the water cooler and more healthful; and from which all the water used at the court of Portugal was drunk. As these vessels are still used in Spain and Portugal, where the wine is cooled also with snow, both methods might have been followed in France. I have in my collection of curiosities, fragments of these Portuguese vessels; they are made of red bole; are not glazed, though they are smooth, and have a faint gloss on the surface like the Etruscan vases. They are so little burnt that one can easily break them with the teeth; and the bits readily dissolve to a paste in the mouth. If water be poured into such vessels, it penetrates their substance; so that, when in the least stirred, many air-bubbles are produced; and it at length oozes entirely through them[396]. The water that has stood in them acquires a taste which many consider as agreeable; and it is probable that it proceeds from the bark of the fir-tree, with which, as we read, they are burnt. When the vessels are new, they perform their service better; and they must then also have a more pleasant smell. If they really render water cold, or retain it cool, that effect, in my opinion, is to be ascribed to the evaporation. Their similarity to those in which the Indians make ice is very apparent.

Towards the end of the sixteenth century, under the reign of Henry III., the use of snow must have been well known at the French court, though it appears that it was considered by the people as a mark of excessive and effeminate luxury. In the witty and severe satire on the voluptuous life of that sovereign and his favourites, known under the title of L’Isle des Hermaphrodites[397], a work highly worthy of notice but which is exceedingly scarce, we find an order of the Hermaphrodites that large quantities of ice and snow should everywhere be preserved, in order that people might cool their liquors with them, even though they might occasion extraordinary maladies, which, it seems, were then apprehended. In the description of an entertainment we are told that snow and ice were placed upon the table before the king; and that he threw some of them into his wine; for the art of cooling it without weakening it was not then known. The same method was practised even during the whole first quarter of the seventeenth century[398].

Towards the end of the above century this luxury must have been very common in France. At that period there were a great many who dealt in snow and ice; and this was a free trade which every person might carry on. Government, however, which could never extort from the people money enough to supply the wants of an extravagant court, farmed out, towards the end of the century, a monopoly of these cooling wares. The farmers, therefore, raised the price from time to time; but the consumption and revenue decreased so much that it was not thought worth while to continue the restriction; and the trade was again rendered free. The price immediately fell; and was never raised afterwards but by mild winters or hot summers.

The method of cooling liquors by placing them in water in which saltpetre has been dissolved, could not be known to the ancients, because they were unacquainted with that salt. They might however, have produced the same coolness by other salts which they knew, and which would have had a better effect; but this, as far as I have been able to learn, they never attempted. The above property of saltpetre was first discovered in the first half of the sixteenth century; and it was not remarked till a long period afterwards, that it belongs to other salts also.

The Italians at any rate were the first people by whom it was employed; and about the year 1550, all the water, as well as the wine, drunk at the tables of the great and rich families at Rome, was cooled in this manner. Blasius Villafranca, a Spaniard, who practised physic in that capital, and attended many of the nobility, published, in the before-mentioned year, an account of it, in which he asserts, more than once, that he was the first person who had made the discovery publicly known. In his opinion it was occasioned by the remark that salt water in summer was always cooler than fresh water. According to his directions, which are illustrated by a figure, the liquor must be put into a bottle or globular vessel with a long neck, that it may be held with more convenience; and this vessel must be immersed in another wide one filled with cold water. Saltpetre must then be thrown gradually into the water; and while it is dissolving, the bottle must be driven round with a quick motion on its axis, in one direction. Villafranca thinks that the quantity of saltpetre should be equal to a fourth or fifth part of the water; and he assures us, that when again crystallized, it may be employed several times for the same use, though this, before that period, had by many been denied. Whether other salts would not produce the like effect, the author did not think of trying; but he attempts to explain this of saltpetre from the principles of Aristotle; and he tells his noble patrons what rules they should observe for the preservation of their health, in regard to cooling liquors.

Towards the end of the sixteenth century this method of cooling liquors was well known, though no mention is made of it by Scappi, in his book on cookery. Marcus Antonius Zimara, however, speaks of it in his Problems[399]. I do not know at what time this Appulian physician lived. In a list of the professors of Padua, his name is to be found under the year 1525, as _Explicator philosophiæ ordinariæ_; and because another is named under the year 1532, we have reason to conjecture that he died about that time. But in that case the physician Villafranca would probably have been acquainted with the Problemata of Zimara; and would not have said that no one had spoken of this use of saltpetre before him.

Levinus Lemnius[400] also mentions the art of cooling wine by this method so much, that the teeth can scarcely endure it. We are informed by Bayle that the earliest edition of his work, which has been often reprinted, was published at Antwerp, in the year 1559, in octavo. It contains only the first two books; but as the above account occurs in the second book, it must be found in this edition.

Nicolaus Monardes, a Spanish physician, who died about the year 1578, mentions this use of saltpetre likewise. It was invented, as he says, by the galley-slaves; but he condemns it as prejudicial to health. From some expressions which he uses, I am inclined to think that he was not sufficiently acquainted with it; and that he imagined that the salt itself was put into the liquor. At a later period we find some account of it in various books of receipts; such as that written by Mizaldus in 1566, and which was printed for the first time the year following[401].

In the Mineralogy of Aldrovandi, first printed in 1648, this process is described after Villafranca; but where the editor, Bartholomæus Ambrosianus, speaks of common salt, he relates that it was usual in countries where fresh water was scarce to make deep pits in the earth; to throw rock-salt into them; and to place in them vessels filled with water, in order that it might be cooled. This remark proves that the latter salt was then employed for the same purpose; but it has led the editor into a very gross error. He thinks he can conclude from it, that the intention of potters, when they mix common salt with their clay, is not only to render the vessel more compact, but also to make it more cooling for liquors. But the former only is true. The addition of salt produces in clay, otherwise difficult to be fused, the faintest commencement of vitrification; a cohesion by which the vessel becomes so solid that it can contain fluids, even when unglazed; but for this very reason it would be most improper for cooling, which is promoted by the evaporation of the water that oozes through.

The Jesuit Cabeus, who wrote a voluminous commentary on the Meteorologica of Aristotle, which were printed at Rome in 1646, assures us that with thirty-five pounds of saltpetre one can not only cool a hundred pounds of water, by quickly stirring it, but convert it also into solid ice; and for the truth of this assertion he refers to an experiment which he made. Bartholin says that for the above account he can give him full credit[402]; but the truth of it is denied by Duhamel, who suspects that this Jesuit took the shooting crystals of the salt to be ice[403].

Who first conceived the idea of mixing snow or ice with saltpetre and other salts, which increases the cold so much, that a vessel filled with water, placed in that mixture, is congealed into a solid mass of ice that may be used on the table, I cannot with certainty determine; but I shall mention the earliest account of it that I have been able to find. Latinus Tancredus, a physician and professor at Naples, whose

## book De Fame et Siti was published in 1607, speaks of this experiment;

and assures us that the cold was so much strengthened by saltpetre, that a glass filled with water, when quickly moved in the above mixture, became solid ice[404].

In the year 1626, the well-known commentary on the works of Avicenna, by Sanct. Sanctorius, was published at Venice. The author in this work relates, that in the presence of many spectators, he had converted wine into ice, not by a mixture of snow and saltpetre, but of snow and common salt[405]. When the salt was equal to a third part of the snow, the cold was three times as strong as when snow was used alone.

Lord Bacon, who died in 1626, says that a new method had been found out of bringing snow and ice to such a degree of cold, by means of saltpetre, as to make water freeze. This, he tells us, can be done also with common salt; by which it is probable he meant unpurified rock-salt; and, he adds, that in warm countries, where snow was not to be found, people made ice with saltpetre alone; but that he himself had never tried the experiment[406]. Boyle, who died in 1691, made experiments with various kinds of salts; and he describes how, by means of salt, a piece of ice may be frozen to another solid body[407]. Descartes says that in his time this was a well-known phænomenon, but highly worthy of attention[408].

Since that period the art of making ice has been spoken of in the writings of all philosophers where they treated on heat and cold, and with many other experiments has been introduced into various books of receipts. It was then employed merely for amusement[409]; and no one suspected that it would ever form an important item of luxury. In the like manner Fugger’s first bills of exchange were said to be useful only for gambling, and gunpowder was called a trifling discovery.

In the beginning of the seventeenth century, drinking-cups made of ice and iced fruit were first brought to the table; but towards the end of that century it appears that the French began to congeal in this manner all kinds of well-tasted juices, which were served up as refreshments at the tables of the great and wealthy[410]. This was a grand invention for the art of cookery; which became common among the German cooks, both male and female, about the middle of the last century; and since that time our confectioners sell single glasses of iced articles at balls and in the theatres.

I am acquainted with no older information respecting this invention than what is contained in Barclay’s Argenis, which is, indeed, a romance; but the author’s account makes the possibility of its being used so clear, that we may certainly conclude it was then employed; especially as he mentions it several times. Arsidas finds in the middle of summer, at the table of Juba, fresh apples, one-half of which was encrusted with transparent ice. A basin, made also of ice and filled with wine, was handed to him; and he was informed that to prepare all these things in summer was a new art. Snow was preserved throughout the whole year in pits lined with straw. Two cups made of copper were placed the one within the other, so as to leave a small space between them, which was filled with water; the cups were then put into a pail, amidst a mixture of snow and unpurified salt coarsely pounded, and the water in three hours was converted into a cup of solid ice, as well-formed as if it had come from the hands of a pewterer. In the like manner apples just pulled from the tree were covered with a coat of ice.

The first edition of the Argenis was printed at Paris in 1621, and in that year the author died at the age of thirty-nine.

After brandy, from being a medicine, came into general use as a liquor at table, and was drunk in common by the populace, the Italians, above all, endeavoured to render it weaker and more pleasant by various mixtures; and by raising its value to make it more respectable, and at the same time more useful to people of the first rank. That their wares might be distinguished with more certainty, they gave them the name of _liquori_; and under that appellation sold them to foreign nations. The French were the first who adopted the use of these articles; particularly after the marriage of Henry II., when duke of Orleans, with Catharine de Medici, in the year 1533. This event brought to France great numbers of Italians, who made the French acquainted with these delicacies of their native country; and who taught them to prepare and to use them. They were the first, therefore, who made and sold the fine _liqueurs_ at Paris; and in order to serve those who could not bear heating liquors, or rather to serve themselves by filling their pockets with money, their successors in this business invented about the year 1630 or 1633 that beverage called _lemonade_, because the juice of lemons or oranges was its chief component part. This liquor soon came into high repute, as it not only served for cooling and refreshing people during the sultry heats of summer, but was even recommended by physicians against putrid diseases.

The _limonadiers_, or venders of lemonade, endeavoured to increase the first property, which occasioned the far greatest consumption, by the means of ice; and one of them, Procope Couteaux, an Italian from Florence, about the year 1660, conceived the happy idea of converting such beverage entirely into ice, by a process which had been before employed only by jugglers. The ready sale which he found for his invention induced others to make articles of the like kind. His example, therefore, was followed by Le Fevre and Foi; and these three for some years enjoyed a monopoly of this new-fashioned commodity. About the year 1676, liquors cooled by, or changed into ice, must however have been the principal things sold by the _limonadiers_; for being then formed into a company, the following delicacies were mentioned in the patent which they received on that occasion: “Eaux de gelée et glaces de fruits et de fleurs, d’anis et de canelle, franchipanne, d’aigre de cetre, du sorbec,” &c. There were at that time in Paris two hundred and fifty masters in this employment. In 1690, when De la Quintiny wrote, iced liquors were extremely common[411].

People, however, long imagined that such articles could be used only during the hot months of summer. In the year 1750, Dubuisson, successor to the celebrated Procope, _au café de la rue des Fossés de S. Germain des Près_, and author of the Art du Déstillateur, began to keep ready prepared, the whole year through, ices of every kind for the use of those who were fond of them. At first they were little called for, except in the dog-days; but some physicians recommended them in certain disorders. Have the physicians then, by their opinion, done most service to the venders of _liqueurs_ and to cooks, or the latter to the physicians? This would make a fine subject for an inaugural dissertation. It is, however, certain, for we are told so by Dubuisson himself, that after two cures, in which ices had been of the greatest service, the _more discerning_ part of the public made use of them in every season of the year. That this part of the public might never lose their conceit, the venders of _liqueurs_ always employed their thoughts upon new inventions. Among the latest is that of iced butter, which acquired its name on account of some likeness to that substance. It was first known at the Parisian coffee-house (_caveau_) in 1774. The Duke de Chartres often went thither to enjoy a glass of iced liquor; and the landlord, to his great satisfaction and surprise, having one day presented him with his arms formed of eatable ice, articles of a similar kind immediately became fashionable.

[Ice is now used extensively for a variety of œconomical purposes, such as packing salmon, cooling liquors, &c. Of late years it has become a regular article of commerce. In September 1833, a cargo of ice, shipped at Boston, was discharged at Calcutta. It was sold at threepence per pound, while the native ice fetched sixpence. It was packed in solid masses, within chambers of double planking, with a layer of refuse tan or bark between them. The quantity shipped was 180 tons, of which about 60 wasted on the voyage, and 20 on the passage up the river to Calcutta. Thousands of tons are now annually shipped from Boston (United States) to our East Indies, to the West Indian Archipelago, and to the Continent of South America, and quite recently ‘The Wenham Lake Ice Company’ have erected extensive ice-houses in London and at Liverpool, and arranged for the transportation to this country of thousands of tons of ice. One surprising circumstance connected with the trade, is the fact that their ice, though transported to this country in the heat of summer, is scarcely reduced in bulk. The masses are so large that they expose a very small surface to atmospheric

## action in proportion to their weight, and therefore do not suffer from

exposure to it, as the smaller and thinner fragments do, which are obtained in our own or other warmer climates. It appears, also, that ice frozen upon very deep water, is more hard and solid than ice of the same thickness obtained from shallow water; and even when an equal surface is exposed, melts more slowly. In this country, the collection of ice, even by those largely engaged in the trade, is an occasional and fitful undertaking; depending, both as to time and quantity, upon the accidental occurrence of severe frost; and when the process of collection is carried on, it is with very few artificial aids. In America, on the other hand, this labour can be regularly carried on through the whole winter; while the adjuncts of machinery for cutting and storing, and of steam for transporting it, are brought extensively into action.

The details connected with this trade, as carried on in America, are so novel and so interesting, that we lay them before our readers with the confident belief that the result of our labours will prove attractive to them. Wenham Lake, whence a large proportion of the ice now imported to this country is obtained, is eighteen miles from Boston, in the State of Massachusets; it occupies a very elevated position, and lies embosomed in hills of majestic height and bold rugged character. The lake has no inlet whatever, but is fed solely by the springs which issue from the rocks at its bottom, a depth of 200 feet from its surface. The ice-house, which is capable of storing 20,000 tons of ice, is built of wood, with double walls, two feet apart, all around; the space between which is filled with sawdust; thus interposing a medium, that is a non-conductor of heat, between the ice and the external air; the consequence of which is, that the ice is scarcely affected by any condition or temperature of the external atmosphere, and can be preserved without waste for an indefinite time.

The machinery employed for cutting the ice is very curious, and was invented for that express purpose. It is worked by men and horses in the following manner:--From the time when the ice first forms, it is carefully kept free from snow until it is thick enough to be cut; that process commences when the ice is a foot thick. A surface of some two acres is then selected, which at that thickness will furnish about 2000 tons, and a straight line is then drawn through its centre from side to side each way. A small hand-plough is pushed along one of these lines, until the groove is about three inches deep and a quarter of an inch in width, when the ‘Marker’ is introduced. This implement is drawn by two horses, and makes two new grooves, parallel with the first, twenty-one inches apart; the gauge remaining in the original groove. The marker is then shifted to the outside groove, and makes two more. Having drawn these lines over the whole surface in one direction, the same process is repeated in a transverse direction, marking all the ice out into squares of 21 inches. In the meantime, the ‘Plough,’ drawn by a single horse, is following in these grooves, cutting the ice to a depth of 6 inches. One entire range of blocks is then sawn out, and the remainder are split off toward the opening thus made with an iron bar. This bar is shaped like a spade and of a wedge-like form. When it is dropped into the groove, the block splits off; a very slight blow being sufficient to produce that effect, especially in very cold weather. The labour of ‘splitting’ is slight or otherwise, according to the temperature of the atmosphere. ‘Platforms,’ or low tables of frame-work, are placed near the opening made in the ice, with iron slides extending into the water, and a man stands on each side of this slide, armed with an ice-hook. With this hook the ice is caught and by a sudden jerk thrown up the ‘slide’ on to the ‘platform.’ In a cold day everything is speedily covered with ice by the freezing of the water on the platforms, slides, &c., and the enormous blocks of ice, weighing some of them more than two cwt., are hurled along these slippery surfaces, as if they were without weight. Beside this platform, stands a ‘sled’ of the same height, capable of containing about three tons; which, when loaded, is drawn upon the ice to the front of the store-house, where a large stationary platform of exactly the same height, is ready to receive its load; which, as soon as discharged, is hoisted block by block, into the house.

Forty men and twelve horses will cut and stow away 400 tons a day. In favourable weather 100 men are sometimes employed at once. When a thaw or a fall of rain occurs, it entirely unfits the ice for market, by rendering it opake and porous; and occasionally snow is immediately followed by rain, and that again by frost, forming snow-ice, which is valueless, and must be removed by the ‘plane.’ The operation of ‘planing’ is somewhat similar to that of ‘cutting.’ A plane gauged to run in the grooves made by the ‘marker,’ and which shaves the ice to the depth of three inches, is drawn by a horse, until the whole surface of the ice is planed. The chips thus produced are then scraped off; and if the clear ice is not reached, the process is repeated. If this makes the ice too thin for cutting, it is left in _statu quo_, and a few nights of hard frost will add below as much as has been taken off above. In addition to filling their ice-houses at the lake and in the large towns, the company fill a large number of private ice-houses during the winter, all the ice for these purposes being transported by railway. It will easily be believed, that the expense of providing tools, building houses, furnishing labour, and constructing and keeping up the railway, is very great; but the traffic is so extensive, and the management of the trade so good, that the ice can be furnished, even in England, at a very trifling cost[412] (it is retailed at twopence per pound).]

FOOTNOTES

[364] Proverbs, xxv. ver. 13.

[365] Bartholini de Nivis Usu Medico Observationes, Hafn. 1661.

[366] Seneca, Quæst. Natur. iv. 13.

[367] Athenæus, iii. p. 124.

[368] Sympos. vi. quæst. 6.--Augustinus De Civitate Dei, xxi. 4, p. 610.

[369] Mémoires Instructifs pour un Voyageur. How the snow repositories at Constantinople are constructed, is related by Bellon in his Observat. iii. 22.

[370] The dissipated Heliogabalus caused whole mounts of snow to be heaped up in summer in order to cool the air. See Lampridius, Vita Heliogab. cap. 23.

[371] Plin. xix. 4.--Latinus Pacatus in Panegyr. Theodos.

[372] De la Valle, iii. p. 60, where the Persian ice-pits are described, as well as in Chardin, iv. p. 195.

[373] Hist. Nat. xxxi. 3, 23, p. 552.

[374] Vita Neronis, cap. 48: Hæc est Neronis decocta.

[375] In lib. vi. Hippocrat. de Morbis Vulgar. comment. 4, 10.

[376] Meteorol. i. cap. 12.

[377] In the place before quoted.

[378] Deipnos. iii. p. 124.

[379] Ibid. p. 123.

[380] See Pitisci Lex. Antiq. Rom. under the word Decocta.

[381] Philosoph. Transact. vol. lxv.