Название: A History of Inventions, Discoveries, and Origins, Volume II (of 2)
Автор: Johann Beckmann
Издательство: Public Domain
Жанр: Зарубежная классика
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The inventor, as his name shows, was an Italian, who made himself known, in particular, at the celebrated siege of Rochelle, under Louis XIII., at which he was chosen to assist, because in the year 1603, when with Spinola, who was consulted respecting the operations at Rochelle, he had helped by means of a mole to shut the harbour of Ostend during the tedious siege of that place. He was likewise in the French service, as intendant des machines du roi; but his numerous and expensive undertakings did not succeed according to his expectations131. He invented also a particular kind of gun-carriages, and a variety of warlike machines132.
Another old figure of such a mill was shown to me by Professor Meister, in Recueil de Plusieurs Machines Militaires, printed in 1620. This machine was driven by the wheels of the carriage; but whether it was ever used the author does not inform us.
Lancellotti133 ascribes this invention to the Germans, about the year 1633.
Carriages for transporting camp-forges and mill-machinery are mentioned by Leonard Fronsperger134, but he does not say whether complete mills were affixed to them.
MIRRORS 135
It is highly probable that a limpid brook was the first mirror136, but we have reason to think that artificial mirrors were made as mankind began to exercise their art and ingenuity on metals and stones. Every solid body, capable of receiving a fine polish, would be sufficient for this purpose; and indeed the oldest mirrors mentioned in history were of metal. Those which occur in Job137 are praised on account of their hardness and solidity; and Moses relates138, that the brazen laver, or washing-basin, was made from the mirrors of the women who had assembled at the door of the tabernacle to present them, and which he caused them to deliver up. As the women appeared in full dress at divine worship, it was necessary for them to have looking-glasses after the Egyptian manner. With these the washing-basins, according to the conjecture of most interpretators, were only ornamented, covered, or perhaps hung round; and Michaelis139 himself was once of this opinion. But why should we not rather believe that the mirrors were melted and formed into washing-basins? As soon as mankind began to endeavour to make good mirrors of metal, they must have remarked that every kind of metal was not equally proper for that use, and that the best could be obtained only from a mixture of different metals. In the mirrors however which were collected by Moses, the artists had a sufficient stock of speculum metal, and were not under the necessity of making it themselves; and for this reason they could much more easily give to the whole basin a polished surface, in which the priests, when they washed, might survey themselves at full length. At any rate such a basin would not be the only one employed instead of a mirror. Artemidorus140 says that he who dreams of viewing himself in a basin, will have a son born to him by his maid. Dreams indeed are generally as groundless as this interpretation; but one can hardly conjecture that Artemidorus would have thought of such a dream, had it not been very common for people to contemplate themselves in a basin. There were formerly a kind of fortune-tellers, who pretended to show in polished basins to the simple and ignorant, what they wished to know141. The ancients also had drinking-vessels, the inside of which was cut into mirrors, so disposed that the image of the person who drank from them was seen multiplied142. Vopiscus mentions, among the valuable presents of Valerian to the emperor Probus, when a tribune, a silver cup of great weight, which was covered on the inside with mirrors of this sort143.
Menard and others conjecture that mirrors in the time of Homer were not much used, because he mentions them on no occasion, not even where he describes in so circumstantial a manner the toilet of Juno144. In answer to this, however, I have two things to observe. In the first place, it is not to be expected that Homer should have mentioned every article with which he was acquainted; and secondly, we are assured by Callimachus, where he evidently has imitated the passage of Homer before-quoted145, that neither Juno nor Pallas employed a mirror when they dressed. Mythology therefore did not allow the poet to introduce a mirror upon the toilet of that deity. Polydore Vergilius, Boccace, Menard, and others have all fallen into the error of making Æsculapius the inventor of mirrors, though Cicero146 seems to say the same thing; but the best commentators have long since observed very justly, that the Roman philosopher alludes not to a mirror but to a probe, the invention of which we may allow to the father of medicine, who was at first only a surgeon.
When one reflects upon the use made of metal mirrors, particularly at Rome, to add to magnificence and for other purposes, and how many artists, during many successive centuries, were employed in constructing them, and vied to excel each other in their art, one cannot help conjecturing that this branch of business must at those periods have been carried to a high degree of perfection. It is therefore to be regretted that they have not been particularly described by any writer, and that on this account the art was entirely lost after the invention of glass mirrors, which are much more convenient. No one at that time entertained the least suspicion that circumstances would afterwards occur which would render these metal mirrors again necessary, as has been the case in our days by the invention of the telescope. Our artists then were obliged to make new experiments in order to discover the best mixture for mirrors of metal; and this should be a warning to mankind, never to suffer arts which have been once invented and useful to become again unknown. A circumstantial description of them should at any rate be preserved for the use of posterity, in libraries, the archives of human knowledge.
When we compare metals in regard to their fitness for mirrors, we shall soon perceive that the hardest of a white colour possess in the highest degree the necessary lustre. For this reason platina is preferable to all others, as is proved from the experiments made by the Count von Sickengen. Steel approaches nearest to this new metal, and silver follows steel; but gold, copper, tin and lead, are much less endowed with the requisite property. I have however observed among the ancients no traces of steel mirrors; and it is probable they did not make any of that metal, as it is so liable to become tarnished, or to contract rust. An ancient steel-mirror is indeed said to have been once found, but as some marks of silvering were perceived on it, a question arises whether the silvered side was not properly the face of the mirror147. Besides, every person knows that a steel mirror would not retain its lustre many centuries amidst ruins and rubbish.
The greater part of the ancient mirrors were made of silver, not on account of costliness and magnificence, as many think, but because silver, as has been said, was the fittest and the most durable of all the then known unmixed metals for that use. In the Roman code of laws, when silver plate is mentioned, under the heads of heirship and succession by propinquity, silver mirrors are rarely omitted; and Pliny148, Seneca149, and other writers, who inveigh against luxury, tell us, ridiculing the extravagance СКАЧАТЬ
129
Novo Teatro di Machine ed Edificii, di Vittorio Zonca. Padoua, 1621, and reprinted in 1656, fol. The greater part of the machines delineated in this scarce book are engines for raising heavy bodies; but many of them are used in various trades and manufactures, and may serve in some measure to illustrate the history of them.
130
J. M. Beyer’s Schauplatz der Mühlen-Bau-kunst. Leipzig, 1735, fol. Reprinted at Dresden, 1767.
131
All those authors who have written expressly on the fate of the Huguenots, the History of Richelieu, Louis XIII., and the siege of Rochelle, make mention of Targone.
132
Histoire de la Milice Françoise, par Daniel. Amst. 1724, i. p. 332.
133
L’Hoggidi, overo gl’Ingegni non inferiori a’ passati. Ven. 1636, 8vo.
134
Kriegsbuch, Frankf. 1596, fol. p. 9.
135
The works in which this subject has been already treated are the following: – Eberhartus de Weihe, de Speculi origine, usu et abusu. A compilation formed without taste, of which I gave some account in the Article on Chimneys. – Spanhemii Obs. in Callimachi hymn. lavacr. Palladis, p. 615. – Académie des Inscriptions, t. xxiii. p. 140. – Recherches sur les Miroirs des Anciens, par Menard. A short paper, barren of information. – Saggi di Dissertazioni Accad. dell’ Accad. Etrusca dell’ città di Cortona, vii. p. 19: Sopra gli Specchi degli Antichi, del Sig. Cari. A translation from the French, with the figures of some ancient mirrors. It contains an explanation of some passages in Pliny, where he seems to speak of a mirror formed of a ruby, and some conjectures respecting the mirror of Nero. An anonymous member of the Academy, in an appendix, confirms the former, and considers the latter, very properly, as improbable. – Caylus, Recueil d’Antiquités, iii. p. 331, and v. p. 173. A description and figures of ancient mirrors, with some chemical experiments on their composition. – Amusemens Philosophiques. Par le père Bonaventure Abat. Amst. 1763, 8vo, p. 433: Sur l’Antiquité des Mirroirs de Verre. A dissertation worthy of being read on account of the author’s acquaintance with the ancient writers, and his knowledge of technology; but he roves beyond all proof, and employs too much verbosity to decorate his conjectures.
136
Passages of the poets, where female deities and shepherdesses are represented as contemplating themselves in water instead of a mirror, may be found in the notes to Phædri Fab. i. 4, in the edition of Burmann.
137
Chap. xxxvii. ver. 18.
138
Exodus, chap. xxxviii. ver. 8.
139
Historia Vitri apud Judæos, in Comment. Societat. Scient. Gotting. iv. p. 330. Having requested Professor Tychsen’s opinion on this subject, I received the following answer: – “You have conjectured very properly that the mirrors of the Israelitish women, mentioned Exod. xxxviii. 8, were not employed for ornamenting or covering the washing-basins, in order that the priests might behold themselves in them; but that they were melted and basins cast of them. The former was a conceit first advanced, if I am not mistaken, by Nicol. de Lyra, in the fourteenth century, and which Michaelis himself adopted in the year 1754; but he afterwards retracted his opinion when he made his translation of the Old Testament at a riper age. In the Hebrew expression there is no ground for it; and mirrors could hardly be placed very conveniently in a basin employed for washing the feet. I must at the same time confess that the word (מראת) which is here supposed to signify a mirror, occurs nowhere else in that sense. Another explanation therefore has been given, by which both the women and mirrors disappear from the passage. It is by a learned Fleming, Hermann Gid. Clement, and may be found in his Dissertatio de Labro Æneo, Groning. 1732, and also in Ugolini Thesaurus, tom. xix. p. 1505. He translates the passage thus: Fecit labrum æneum et operculum ejus æneum cum
140
Oneirocrit. lib. iii. cap. 30. p. 176.
141
Joh. Sarisberiensis, i. cap. 12.
142
Plin. lib. xxxiii. cap. 9. Seneca, Quæst. Nat. i. cap. 5.
143
Vita Probi, cap. iv. p. 926: “Patinam argenteam librarum decem specillatam.” Salmasius chooses rather to read
144
Iliad. lib. xiv. ver. 166.
145
Hymnus in Lavacrum Palladis, v. 15, 21. It was however customary to ascribe a mirror to Juno, as Spanheim on this passage proves; and Athanasius, in Orat. contra Gentes, cap. xviii. p. 18, says that she was considered as the inventress of dress and all ornaments. Should not therefore the mirror, the principal instrument of dress, belong to her? May it not have been denied to her by Callimachus, because he did not find it mentioned in the description which Homer has given of her dressing-room?
146
De Natur. Deorum, iii. 22.
147
Licetus de Lucernis Antiq. lib. vi. cap. 92.
148
Lib. xxxiv. cap. 17, p. 669.
149
Quæst. Nat. at the end of the first book.