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  BOHN’S STANDARD LIBRARY.

  BECKMANN’S
  HISTORY OF INVENTIONS,
  DISCOVERIES, AND ORIGINS.




“Were I to pray for a taste which should stand me in stead under every
variety of circumstances, and be a source of happiness and cheerfulness
to me during life, and a shield against its ills, however things
might go amiss and the world frown upon me, it would be a taste for
reading.... Give a man this taste, and the means of gratifying it, and
you can hardly fail of making him a happy man; unless, indeed, you
put into his hands a most perverse selection of books. You place him
in contact with the best society in every period of history,--with
the wisest, the wittiest, the tenderest, the bravest, and the purest
characters who have adorned humanity. You make him a denizen of all
nations, a contemporary of all ages. The world has been created for
him.”--SIR JOHN HERSCHEL. _Address on the opening of the Eton Library_,
1833.

[Illustration:

  _Lud. Schmidt._      _J. J. Hinchliff._

_John Beckmann._]




  A
  HISTORY
  OF
  INVENTIONS, DISCOVERIES,
  AND ORIGINS.

  BY JOHN BECKMANN,
  PROFESSOR OF ŒCONOMY IN THE UNIVERSITY OF GÖTTINGEN.

  TRANSLATED FROM THE GERMAN,
  BY WILLIAM JOHNSTON.


  Fourth Edition,

  CAREFULLY REVISED AND ENLARGED BY
  WILLIAM FRANCIS, Ph.D., F.L.S.,
  EDITOR OF THE CHEMICAL GAZETTE;
  AND
  J. W. GRIFFITH, M.D., F.L.S.,
  LICENTIATE OF THE ROYAL COLLEGE OF PHYSICIANS.


  VOL. I.


  LONDON:
  HENRY G. BOHN, YORK STREET, COVENT GARDEN.
  1846.




  PRINTED BY RICHARD AND JOHN E. TAYLOR,
  RED LION COURT, FLEET STREET.




CONTENTS.


                                                  Page
  Italian Book-keeping                               1
  Odometer                                           5
  Machine for noting down Music                     12
  Refining Gold and Silver Ore by Quicksilver       14
  Cold or Dry Gilding                               19
  Gold Varnish                                      20
  Tulips                                            22
  Canary Bird                                       32
  Archil                                            35
  Magnetic Cures                                    43
  Secret Poison                                     47
  Wooden Bellows                                    63
  Coaches                                           68
  Water-clocks, Clepsydras                          82
  Tourmaline                                        86
  Speaking-trumpet                                  93
  Ananas.--Pine-apple                              102
  Sympathetic Ink                                  106
  Diving-bell                                      111
   Glass.--Artificial Gems                 123
  Sealing-wax                                      137
  Corn-mills                                       147
  Verdigris, or Spanish Green                      171
  Saffron                                          175
  Alum                                             180
  Falconry                                         198
  Turf                                             205
  Artichoke                                        212
  Saw-mills                                        222
  Stamped Paper                                    230
  Insurance                                        234
  Adulteration of Wine                             245
  Artificial Pearls                                258
  Paving of Streets                                269
  Collections of Natural Curiosities               282
  Chimneys                                         295
  Hungary Water                                    315
  Cork                                             318
  Apothecaries                                     326
  Clocks and Watches                               340
  Clocks and Watches (additional)                  355
  Quarantine                                       373
  Paper-hangings                                   379
  Kermes. Cochineal                                385
  Writing-pens                                     405
  Wire-drawing                                     414
  Buck-wheat                                       425
  Saddles                                          431
  Stirrups                                         435
  Horse-shoes                                      442
  Floating of Wood                                 454
  Lace                                             463
  Ultramarine                                      467
  Cobalt, Zaffer, Smalt                            478
  Turkeys                                          487
  Butter                                           499
  Aurum Fulminans                                  509
  Garden-flowers                                   512




ADVERTISEMENT.


In revising Beckmann’s celebrated Work, we have endeavoured to improve
it principally by altering such names, characters, descriptions, and
opinions as have become obsolete, or are now known to be erroneous;
and by such additions as seemed necessary to bring the accounts of
the subjects treated of to the present state of knowledge. In some
cases, these additions may appear to diverge from the declared object
of the work; but in this we have only followed the example of Beckmann
himself, who frequently deviates from a strict historical path, and
we think advantageously, for the purpose of introducing curious,
instructive, or amusing information. In most cases, where the subject
under consideration is a process of manufacture, we have given a brief
outline of its practice or theory, unless this had previously been done
by the author. The translation, also, has been carefully compared with
the German, but in only a very few cases could we detect errors which
rendered the passages contradictory or unintelligible: on the whole,
it is extremely well executed; and too much praise cannot be given to
Johnston, for the judicious manner in which he has embodied in one
article, detached essays on the same subject, which Beckmann published
at different periods, as he acquired fresh information. The only
instances in which this had been omitted, are the articles on _Turf_,
_Cork_, and _Quarantine_, which were still encumbered with addenda; in
the present edition, these have been incorporated. All such quotations
from Latin and Greek authors, as might be deemed essential to the
understanding of the text, have been given in English; those of a mere
critical and philological character, it has been thought advisable to
leave untranslated. The book may be classed as a compound of learned
research and light reading, suitable both to the popular reader and the
scholar; and that character has been preserved in the present edition.
To the kindness of John Frodsham, Esq., the present proprietor of
Arnold’s Chronometer Establishment, we are indebted for much of the
interesting information added to the article on ‘Clocks and Watches;’
and we have also to return our thanks to the publisher, Mr. H. G. Bohn,
for the assistance he has constantly afforded us, as well as for his
Memoir of the author.

  W. FRANCIS.
  J. W. GRIFFITH.




TRANSLATOR’S PREFACE.


That the arts had their rise in the East, and that they were conveyed
thence to the Greeks, and from them to the Romans, is universally
admitted. Respecting the inventions and discoveries however of the
earliest ages, nothing certain is known. Many of those most useful in
common life must have been the production of periods when men were
little acquainted with letters, or any sure mode of transmitting an
account of their improvements to succeeding generations. The taste
which then prevailed of giving to every thing a divine origin, rendered
traditional accounts fabulous; and the exaggeration of poets tended
more and more to make such authorities less worthy of credit. A variety
of works also, which might have supplied us with information on this
subject, have been lost; and the relations of some of those preserved
are so corrupted and obscure, that the best commentators have not
been able to illustrate them. This in particular is the case with
many passages in Pliny, an author who appears to have collected with
the utmost diligence whatever he thought useful or curious, and whose
desire of communicating knowledge seems to have been equal to his
thirst for acquiring it.

Of all those nations whose history has been preserved, the most
distinguished are certainly the Greeks and the Romans; but, as far as
can be judged at this remote period, the former were superior to the
latter in point of invention. The Romans indeed seem to have known
little, except what they borrowed from the Grecians; and it is evident,
by their sending their young men of rank to finish their education
in Greece, that they considered that country as the seat of the arts
and the sciences, and as a school where genius would be excited by
the finest models, while the taste was corrected and formed. From
some hints given however by Pliny and other writers, we have reason
to conclude that the Romans possessed more knowledge of the arts than
the moderns perhaps are willing to allow, and that some inventions,
considered as new, may be only old ones revived and again rendered
useful.

When Rome, abandoned to luxury and vice, became an easy prey to those
hordes of barbarians who overran the empire, her arts shared in the
general wreck, and were either entirely lost, or for a time forgotten.
The deplorable state of ignorance in which Europe was afterwards
plunged during several centuries, retarded their revival; and it was
not till a late period, when favoured and protected by a few men of
superior genius, that they began to be again cultivated. It cannot
however be denied, that several important discoveries, altogether
unknown to the ancients, which must have had considerable influence
on the general state of society, were made in ages that can hardly be
exempted from the appellation of barbarous. As a proof of this may be
mentioned the invention of paper[1], painting in oil[2], the mariner’s
compass[3], gunpowder[4], printing[5], and engraving on copper[6].
After the invention of the compass and printing, two grand sources
were opened for the improvement of science. In proportion as navigation
was extended, new objects were discovered to awaken the curiosity and
excite the attention of the learned; and the ready means of diffusing
knowledge, afforded by the press, enabled the ingenious to make them
publicly known. Ignorance and superstition, the formidable enemies of
philosophy in every age, began soon to lose some of that power which
they had usurped; and states, forgetting their former blind policy,
adopted improvements which their prejudice had before condemned.

Though it might be expected that the great share which new inventions
and discoveries have at all times had in effecting such happy changes
among mankind would have secured them a distinguished place in the
annals of nations, we find with regret, that the pen of history
has been more employed in recording the crimes of ambition and the
ravage of conquerors, than in preserving the remembrance of those
who, by improving science and the arts, contributed to increase the
conveniences of life, and to heighten its enjoyments. So little indeed
has hitherto been done towards a history of inventions and discoveries,
that the rise and progress of part of those even of modern times is
involved in considerable darkness and obscurity: of some the names of
the inventors are not so much as known, and the honour of others is
disputed by different nations; while the evidences on both sides are so
imperfect, that it is almost impossible to determine to which the palm
is due. To Professor Beckmann, therefore, those fond of such researches
are much indebted for the pains he has been at to collect information
on this subject; and though he has perhaps not been able to clear up
every doubt respecting the objects on which he treats, he has certainly
thrown much light on many curious circumstances hitherto buried in
oblivion.

The author, with much modesty, gives to this work in the original the
title of only Collections towards a History of Inventions: but as he
has carefully traced out the rise and progress of all those objects
which form the subject of his inquiry, from the earliest periods of
their being known, as far as books supplied information, and arranged
his matter in chronological order, the original title may admit,
without being liable to much criticism, of the small variation adopted
in the translation. The author, indeed, has not in these volumes
comprehended every invention and discovery, but he has given an account
of a great many, most of them very important.

Should any one be disposed to find fault with the author for
introducing into his work some articles which on the first view may
appear trifling, his own words, taken from the short preface prefixed
to the first volume of the original, will perhaps be considered as
a better exculpation than anything the translator might advance in
his favour. “I am sensible,” says he, “that many here will find
circumstances which they may think unworthy of the labour I have
bestowed upon them; but those who know how different our judgements
are respecting utility, will not make theirs a rule for mine. Those
whose self-conceit would never allow them to be sensible of this truth,
and who reject as useless all ore in which they do not observe pure
gold, as they display very little acuteness, must be often duped by
the tinsel glare of false metal; and they give me as little uneasiness
as those who have no desire to know the origin of inventions, or how
they were brought to their present utility. If my extending the term
Invention farther than is perhaps usual, by comprehending under it
several police-establishments, be a fault, it is at any rate harmless,
and on that account may be pardoned without much apology.”


FOOTNOTES

[1] Montfaucon, notwithstanding all his researches in France and Italy,
was not able to discover any charter or diploma written on common
paper, older than the year 1270. Paper, however, made of cotton, is
said to be much older, and to have been introduced into Europe by the
Arabs. If we can believe an Arabian author, who wrote in the thirteenth
century, quoted by Casiri, in Biblioth. Arabico-Hispana, vol. ii. p.
9, paper (doubtless of cotton) was invented at Mecca by one Joseph
Amru, about the year of the Hegira 88, or of the Christian æra 706.
According to other Arabian authors, quoted by Casiri and Abulfeda, the
Arabs found a manufactory of paper at Samarcand in Bucharia, when they
conquered that country in the year of the Hegira 85, or of our æra
704. The art of making paper from silk was, as some pretend, known to
the Chinese 180 years before Jesus Christ. See a letter from Father
de Mailla to Father Etienne Souciet, in Mémoires des Inscript. et des
Belles Lettres, vol. xv. 520.

[2] The oldest picture, known at present, painted in oil-colours on
wood is preserved in the Imperial Gallery at Vienna. It was painted in
the year 1297, by a painter named Thomas de Mutina, or de Muttersdorf,
in Bohemia. Two other paintings in the same gallery are of the year
1357; one of them is by Nicholas Wurmser of Strasburg, and the other
by Thierry of Prague. It appears therefore that painting in oil was
known long before the epoch at which that invention is generally fixed;
and that it is erroneously ascribed to Hubert van Eyck and his brother
and pupil, John van Eyck, otherwise called John of Bruges, who lived
about the end of the fourteenth century, and not the beginning of the
fifteenth, as is commonly supposed. [There is evidence in the books of
the Painters’ Company, under the date of the 11th of Edward I. (1283),
that oil painting was in use at that time. See a communication from Sir
Francis Palgrave given in the new edition of Carter’s Ancient Sculpture
and Paintings in England, page 80.]

[3] The person who first speaks of the magnetic needle and its use in
navigation, is a Provençal poet, who lived in the beginning of the
thirteenth century, and who wrote a poem entitled Bible Guyot. This
work is a satire, in which the author lashes with great freedom the
vices of that age. Comparing the Pope to the polar star, he introduces
a description of the compass, such as it appears to have been in
its infancy. This invention however is claimed by the Italians, who
maintain that we are indebted for it to a citizen of Amalphi, named
Flavius Gioja, and in support of this assertion quote commonly the
following line of Panormitanus:

  Prima dedit nautis usum magnetis Amalfis.

[4] Of the use of gunpowder in Europe no certain traces occur till
towards the middle of the fourteenth century. It seems pretty well
proved, that artillery was known in France after the year 1345. In
1356, the city of Nuremberg purchased the first gunpowder and cannon.
The same year the city of Louvain employed thirty cannon at the battle
of Santfliet against the Flemings. In 1361, a fire broke out at Lubec,
occasioned by the negligence of those employed in making gunpowder. In
1363, the Hans-towns used cannon for the first time, in a naval combat
which they fought against the Danes. After 1367, the use of fire-arms
became general throughout Italy, into which they had been introduced
from Germany.

[5] The invention of printing has given rise to many researches.
Meermann in his Origines Typographicæ, published in 1768, endeavours
to prove that Laurence Coster of Haarlem was the inventor, about the
year 1430. Most authors however agree that John Gutenberg was the
inventor of moveable types, but they differ respecting the place of the
invention. Some make it to be Strasburg, others Mentz, and some fix the
epoch of the invention at 1440, and others at 1450.

[6] Vasari, in Vite de’ Pittori, vol. iv. p. 264, ascribes the
invention of engraving on copper to a goldsmith of Florence, named
Maso Fin