A History of Inventions, Discoveries, and Origins. Johann Beckmann

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СКАЧАТЬ the manner of making meal; that is, by pounding. This appears to me probable from the words immediately preceding, which I have above endeavoured to explain, and from the word evalli. I do not think that it ought to be translated to winnow, as Salmasius says, in Exercitat. Plinianæ, p. 907; but agree with Gesner in Thesaur. Steph., that it signifies to free the corn from the husk. The corn was first separated from the husks by pounding, which was more easily done after the grain had been soaked; the shelled corn was then soaked again, and by these means rendered so brittle that it was easily pounded to meal. The like method is employed when people make grits without a mill, only by pounding; a process mentioned by Krünitz in his Encyclopédie, vol. ix. p. 805.

442 Further information on this subject may be found collected in Krünitz, Encyclopédie, vol. iii. p. 334. According to experiments mentioned by Köhler, a hundred pounds of meal in Germany produce a hundred and fifty pounds of dough, and these a hundred and fifty-three pounds eleven and a half ounces of good bread.

443 See the treatise of Rosa, professor of medicine at Pavia, on the baking of bread in Lombardy, in Atti dell’ Academia delle Scienze di Siena, tom. iv. p. 321.

444 “Italy, the most celebrated country in the world, and abundant in grain, has no delicate, wholesome and pleasant bread, but what is baked by a German baker, who, by art and industrious labour, subdues the fire, tempers the heat, and equalises the flour in such a manner, that the bread becomes light, fine and delicate; whereas, if baked by an Italian, it is heavy, hard, unwholesome and insipid. His holiness, therefore, prelates, kings, princes and great lords, seldom eat any bread except what is baked in the German manner. The Germans not only bake well our usual bread, but they prepare also biscuit for the use of ships or armies in the time of war, with so much skill, that the Venetians have German bakers only in their public bakehouses; and their biscuit is sent far and wide over Illyria, Macedonia, the Hellespont, Greece, Syria, Egypt, Libya, Mauritania, Spain, France, and even to the Orkney Islands and Britain, to be used by their own seamen, or sold to other nations.”—Historia Suevorum, lib. i. c. 8. This history of Felix Fabri may be found in Suevicarum Rerum Scriptores, Goldasti. Franc. 1605, 4to, and Ulm, 1727, fol.

445 Bericht von Brodtbacken, etc., durch Sab. Mullein, Leipsig, 1616, 4to. Muller’s work is republished in Arcana et Curiositates Œconomicæ. By David Maiern, 1706, 8vo.

446 Schreber, in his Observations on Malouin, shows that the mill-stones in France are too large.

447 Traité de la Police, par De la Mare, ii. p. 259.

448 “Défenses sont aussi faites à tous boulangers, tant maîtres que forains, de faire remoudre aucun son, pour par après en faire et fabriquer du pain, attendu qu’il seroit indigne d’entrer au corps humain, sur peine de quarante-huit livres Parisis d’amende.”—De la Mare, p. 228. The following was the true cause of this prohibition. As a heavy tax in kind was demanded for all the meal brought to Paris, many sent thither not meal, but bran abundant in meal, which they caused to be ground and sifted there, and by these means acquired no small gain. When the tax was abolished, an end was put to this deception, which would otherwise have brought the mouture économique much sooner to perfection.

449 Histoire de la Vie Privée des François, par M. Le Grand d’Aussy. Paris, 1782, 3 vols. 8vo, i. p. 50.

450 Budæus De Asse. Basiliæ, 1556, fol. p. 214.

451 De Koophandel van Amsterdam, door Le Long. ii. p. 538.

452 Digestorum lib. xxxix. tit. 2. 24.

453 Ibid. lib. xliii. tit. 12. 1.

454 See a diploma of Frederic I., dated 1159, in Tolneri Codex Diplomaticus Palatinus, Franc. 1700, fol. p. 54. In Reliquiæ Manuscriptorum, P. Ludewig. Franc. 1720, 8vo, ii. p. 200, we read an instance of the emperor Frederic I. having forbidden the building of a mill.

455 Digestor. lib. xliii. tit. 11, 12.

456 Einleitung in die Lehre von den Regalien. Rostock, 1757, 4to, p. 494.

457 Chronicon Canon, reg. ord. August. capituli Windesemensis; auctore Joh. Buschio. Antv. 1621, 8vo, p. 73.

458 Schrevelii Harlemum. Lugd. Bat. 1647, 4to, p. 181.

459 This letter of Fulbert may be found in Maxima Bibliotheca Veterum Patrum. Lugduni 1677, fol. tom. xviii. p. 9.

460 In Labbei Biblioth. Manuscr. i. p. 132.

461 Traités de la Police, ii. p. 151.

      VERDIGRIS, or SPANISH GREEN.

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Respecting the preparation of verdigris, various and in part contradictory opinions have been entertained; and at present, when it is with certainty known, it appears that the process is almost the same as that employed in the time of Theophrastus, Dioscorides, and Vitruvius462. At that period, however, every natural green copper salt was comprehended under the name of ærugo. Dioscorides and Pliny say expressly, that a substance of the nature of those stones which yielded copper when melted, was scraped off in the mines of Cyprus; as is still practised in Hungary, where the outer coat of the copper ore is collected in the like manner, and afterwards purified by being washed in water. Another species, according to the account of Dioscorides, was procured from the water of a grotto in the same island; and the most saleable natural verdigris is still collected by a similar method in Hungary. The clear water which runs from old copper-works is put into large vessels, and after some time the green earth falls to the bottom as a sediment.

The artificial ærugo of the ancients, however, was our verdigris, or copper converted into a green salt by acetic acid. To discover the method of procuring this substance could not be difficult, as that metal contracts a green rust oftener than is wished, when in the least exposed to acids. The ancients, for this purpose, used either vessels and plates of copper, or only shavings and filings; and the acid they employed was either the sourest vinegar, or the sour remains left when they made wine; such as grapes become sour, or the stalks and skins after the juice had been pressed from them463. Sometimes the copper was only exposed to the vapour of vinegar СКАЧАТЬ