Part 4

In 1841, M. Delectuze discovered, among the manuscripts of Leonardo da Vinci, an entry carrying a knowledge of the steam-engine, applied to warfare, to at least as far back as the fifteenth century. He has published in the _Artiste_, a notice of the life of Leonardo, to which he adds a fac-simile of a page of one of his manuscripts, containing five pen-and-ink sketches of details of the apparatus of a Steam Gun, with an explanatory note on what he designates the "Architonnere." The entry is as follows:--

Invention of Archimedes. The architonnere is a machine of fine copper, which throws balls with a loud report and great force. It is used in the following manner:--One-third of the instrument contains a large quantity of charcoal fire. When the water is well heated, a screw at the top of the vessel which contains the water must be made quite tight. On closing the screw above, all the water will escape below, will descend into the heated portion of the instrument, and be immediately converted into a vapour so abundant and powerful, that it is wonderful to see its force, and hear the noise it produces. This machine will carry a ball a talent in weight."

It is worthy of remark that Leonardo da Vinci, far from claiming the merit of this invention for himself or the men of his time, attributes it to Archimedes. The Steam Gun of our time has been an exhibition-room wonder; and the prediction of the Duke of Wellington that it would fail in warfare, has never been, and is never likely to be, tested.

ANCIENT OBSERVATORY IN PERSIA.

When Sir John Malcolm visited Maraga, he traced distinctly the foundations of the Observatory, constructed in the 13th century, for Naser-ood-Deen, the favourite philosopher of the Tartar prince, Hoolakoo, the grandson of Ghenghiz, who, in this locality relaxed from his warlike toils, and assembled round him men of the first genius of the age, who have commemorated his love of science, and given him more fame as its munificent patron, than he acquired by all his conquests.

In this observatory there was, according to one of the best Mahomedan works, a species of apparatus to represent the celestial sphere, with the signs of the zodiac, the conjunctions, transits, and revolutions of the heavenly bodies. Through a perforation in the dome, the rays of the sun were admitted, so as to strike upon certain lines on the pavement in a way to indicate, in degrees and minutes, the altitude and declination of that luminary during every season, and to mark the time and hour of the day throughout the year. The Observatory was further supplied with a map of the terrestrial globe, in all its climates or zones, exhibiting the several regions of the habitable world, as well as a general outline of the ocean, with the numerous islands contained in its bosom; and, according to the Mahomedan author, all these were so perspicuously arranged and delineated, as at once to remove, by the clearest demonstration, every doubt from the mind of the student.

LONDON AS A PORT.

Sir John Herschel, who possesses in an eminent degree, the peculiar talent of felicitously illustrating every subject that he approaches, in his valuable _Treatise on Astronomy_, thus refers to the situation of London as a Port:--"It is a fact, not a little interesting to Englishmen, and combined with our insular station in that highway of nations, the Atlantic, not a little explanatory of our commercial eminence, that LONDON _occupies nearly the centre of the terrestrial hemisphere_."

FOURDRINIER'S PAPER-MAKING MACHINERY.

On April 25, 1839, some very interesting details of Fourdrinier's Machinery for making Paper of endless length, were elicited during a debate in the House of Commons, upon the presentation of a petition from these ingenious manufacturers. It appears that 1000 yards, or any given quantity of yards, of paper could be continuously made by it. Many years since, the invention was patented; but, owing to a mistake in the patent--the word "machine" being written instead of "machines"--the property was pirated, and that led to litigations, in which the patentees' funds were exhausted before they could establish their rights. They then became bankrupts, and thus all the fruits of their invention, on which they had spent 40,000_l._, were entirely lost to them.

The evidence of Mr. Brunel, and of Mr. Lawson, the printer of _The Times_, proved the invention of the Fourdriniers to be one of the most splendid discoveries of the age. Mr. Lawson stated that the conductors of the metropolitan newspapers could never have presented to the world such an immense mass of news and advertisements as was now contained in them, had not this invention enabled them to make use of any size required. By the revolution of the great cylinder employed in the process, an extraordinary degree both of rapidity and convenience in the production is secured. One of its chief advantages is the prevention of all risk of combination among the workmen, the machine being so easily managed that the least skilful person can attend to it. It was added that the invention had caused a remarkable increase in the revenue: in the year 1800, when this machine was not in existence, the amount of the paper duty was 195,641_l._; in 1821, when the machinery was in full operation, the amount of duty was 579,867_l._; in 1835, it was 833,822_l._ No doubt, part of this increase must be set down to other causes; still, it was impossible but for this discovery, that such a quantity of paper could have been made and consumed. The positive saving to the country effected by it, had not been less than 8,000,000_l._; the increase in the revenue not less than 500,000_l._ a-year. At length, in May, 1840, the sum of 7,000_l._ was voted by Parliament to Messrs. Fourdrinier, as some compensation for their loss by the defective state of the patent law.

There has been made by this machinery at Colinton mills, a single sheet of paper weighing 533 lbs., and measuring upwards of a mile and a half in length, the breadth being only 50 inches. Were a ream of paper of similar sheets made, it would weigh 266,500lbs. or upwards of 123 tons.

THE COCOA-NUT CRAB.

M. Darwin in his _Voyage round the World_, thus describes a Crab which lives upon Cocoa-nuts, and which he found on Keeling Island, in the South Seas: "It is very common on all parts of the dry land, and grows to a monstrous size; it has a front pair of legs, terminated by very strong and heavy pincers, and the least pair by others which are narrow and weak. It would at first be thought quite impossible for a crab to open a strong cocoa-nut covered with the husk; but M. Liesk assures me he has repeatedly seen the operation effected. The crab begins by tearing the husk, fibre by fibre, and always from that end under which the three eye-holes are situated; when this is completed, the crab commences hammering with its heavy claws on one of these eye-holes till an opening is made. Then, turning round its body, by the aid of its posterior and narrow pair of pincers, it extracts the white albuminous substance. I think this is as curious a case of instinct as ever I heard of, and likewise of adaptation in structure between two objects apparently so remote from each other in the scheme of nature, as a crab and a cocoa-nut."

DESCARTES' WOODEN DAUGHTER.

When Descartes resided in Holland, he made with great labour and industry a female automaton, which gave some wicked wits occasion to report that he had an illegitimate daughter, named Franchine. The object of Descartes was, to demonstrate that beasts have no souls, and are but machines nicely composed, that move whenever another body strikes them and communicates to them a portion of its motions. Having carried this singular machine on board of a Dutch vessel, the captain, who sometimes heard it move, had the curiosity to open the box. Astonished to see a little human form uncommonly animated, yet when touched appearing to be nothing but wood--and being little versed in science, but very superstitious--he took the ingenious labour of the philosopher for a little devil, and terminated the experiment of Descartes, by throwing his "wooden daughter" into the sea.

ASTRONOMICAL SHOEMAKER.

When Halley's comet was expected in 1835, a shoemaker of Leicester, named Joseph Mills, set about tracing the path of the heavenly visitor through the heavens. This he did by drawing its orbit upon his house floor, from which he made a diagram that more accurately represented the course of the comet than any that had been previously published. On being questioned how he had calculated the disturbing forces, so as to come so near the truth; he replied that he could not tell, further than he had performed it by the common rules of arithmetic.

DECLINE OF SCIENCE.

In January, 1842, a poor fellow was taken before the authorities of Paris for begging in the streets. He had studied the _science_ of cookery under the celebrated Carême, and was the inventor of the delicious _Saumon truffé à la broche_. He was in the last garb of want, and attributed his poverty to the decline of cookery from a science to a low art! It has been observed that cooks, in nine cases out of ten, after ministering to the luxury of the opulent, creep into holes and corners, and pass neglected out of the world.

VARIABLE CLIMATE OF TEBREEZ.

Tebreez is celebrated as one of the most healthy cities in Persia, and it is on this ground alone that we can account for its being so often rebuilt after its repeated demolition by earthquakes. It is seldom free even for a twelvemonth from slight shocks; and it is not yet so much as a century since it was levelled to the ground by one of those terrible convulsions of nature.

Sir John Malcolm, when he visited this place, was more surprised at its salubrity, from knowing the great extremes of heat and cold to which it is subject; having obtained from a friend who had resided there during the whole of the preceding year, a most accurate diary of the various changes of its climate.

"From this, it appeared that on the 20th of October there was a heavy fall of snow, which did not, however, remain long upon the ground: the weather again became mild, and there was no excessive cold until the middle of December, from which period, until the end of January, Fahrenheit's thermometer, when exposed to the air at night, never rose above zero; and in the house at mid-day it was seldom above 18°.

"January was by far the coldest month. During it, the water is described as becoming almost instantaneously solid in the tumblers upon the dining-table, and the ink often freezing in the ink-stand, although the table was close to the fire. For at least a fortnight, not an egg was to be had, all being split by the cold. Some bottles of wine froze, although covered with straw, and many of the copper ewers were split by the expansion of the water when frozen in them.

"According to this diary, the weather became comparatively mild towards the end of February; but it appears that here, as in England,

'A lingering winter chills the lap of May;'

for, on the first of that month, there was a heavy fall of snow, with such cold that all promise of the spring was destroyed. Of the heat that ensued, and the sudden and great changes to which Tebreez is subject, we had abundant proof; in the month of June, the range of the thermometer being usually, within the twenty-four hours, from 56° to 94°,--a difference of 38°.

"The extreme heat of the summer causes most of the houses in Tebreez to be built so as to admit the air during that season; but the architects of Persia fall short of their brethren in Europe, in forming places by which the cool air can be admitted in summer, and excluded in winter. This partly accounts for the above effects of cold; but the city of Tebreez, and many more parts of Aderbejan, and still more of the neighbouring province of Kûrdistan, though nowhere beyond the 40th degree of latitude, are, from their great elevation, subject to extreme cold. In the latter country (says Sir John Malcolm) I found, on the morning of the 17th of August, ice half an inch thick on a basin of water standing in my tent."[4]

Footnote 4:

Sketches of Persia.

STRYCHNINE A REMEDY FOR PARALYSIS.

Strychnine (obtained in the greatest purity from the Upas Tiente) has been used successfully for this purpose. One of Dr. Bardesley's patients in Lincolnshire, who was experiencing the return of sensation in his paralyzed limbs, under the use of strychnine, asked if there was not something _quick_ in the pills; _quick_ for _alive_ being still in use in that part of England.

RAPID MANUFACTURE.

Many years ago, the late Sir John Throckmorton sat down to dinner, dressed in a coat which, the same morning, had been wool on the back of the sheep. The animals were sheared; the wool washed, carded, spun, and woven; the cloth was scoured, fulled, sheared, dyed, and dressed; and then, by the tailor's aid, made into a coat, between sunrise and the hour of seven, when a party sat down to dinner, with Sir John, as their chairman, wearing the product of the active day!

DISCOVERIES ANTICIPATED.

From time immemorial, the inhabitants of some distant regions have carried on their nocturnal or underground manufactures by natural gas, obtained through a hollow reed thrust into the earth. Arriving at modern times, navigation by the Archimedes screw, as a propeller, through the means of steam, attracted the notice of the Scottish Society of Arts in 1840; but, above twenty years previously, an experiment with similar screws, adapted to a boat, on the lake Lochend, by Mr. Whytock, a member of the Society, proved the efficiency of the invention, though on a small scale. In Scotland, an Agricultural Society was established in 1723; a thrashing-machine appeared in 1735; and a reaping-machine in 1765.

THE FIRST USE OF JESUIT'S BARK.

A casual circumstance, it is said, discovered that excellent febrifuge, the Jesuit's Bark. An Indian in a delirious fever was left by his companions, as incurable, by the side of a river, to quench his burning thirst while dying. He naturally drank copious draughts of the water, which, having long imbibed the virtues of the bark, that floated abundantly on the stream, quickly dispersed the fever of the Indian. He returned to his friends, and explained the nature of his remedy; and the sick crowded about the margin of the holy stream (as they imagined it) till they had quite exhausted its virtues. The sages of the tribe found out at length, however, whence the efficacy of the stream arose. The Indians discovered it first, in 1640, to the lady of a Viceroy of Peru, who by its use recovered of a dangerous fever; and in 1643 it was known at Rome.

NICE ROBBERY.

M. Bachalier, a French florist, kept some beautiful species of the anemone to himself, which he had procured from the East Indies; and he succeeded in withholding them, for ten years, from all who wished to possess them likewise. A counsellor of the parliament, however, one day paid him a visit, while the anemones were in seed, and in walking with him round the garden contrived to let his gown fall upon them. By this means he swept off a good number of the seeds; and his servant, who had been apprised of the scheme, dexterously wrapt up the gown and secured them. Any one must have been a sour moralist who should have considered this to be a breach of the eighth commandment.

FEMALE MATHEMATICIAN.

In the year 1736, the French Academy of Sciences proposed, as a subject for a prize, "the Propagation of Heat," when the Marchioness of Châtelet entered the list of competitors. Her work was not only an elegant account of all the properties of heat at that time known to natural philosophers, but it was also remarkable for various proposals for experiments; one, among others, which was afterwards followed up by Herschel, and from which he derived one of the chief gems in his brilliant scientific crown.

FOURIER'S INDEPENDENCE.

It was only occasionally that the real character of Fourier, the French philosopher, showed itself. "It is strange," said, one day, a certain very influential person belonging to the court of Charles X., whom the servant, Joseph, would not allow to get further than Fourier's ante-chamber--"it is really strange that your master should be more difficult of access than a minister." Fourier, overhearing this remark, jumped out of bed, to which he had been confined by indisposition, opened the room door, and facing the courtier, exclaimed, "Joseph, tell the gentleman, that if I were a minister, I should receive everybody, because such would be my duty: as a private individual, I receive whom I think fit, and when I think fit." The grandee, disconcerted by the liveliness of the sally, did not answer a word. We must even suppose that from that instant he determined to visit nobody but ministers, for the simple _savant_ heard no more of him.

MECHANICAL TRIUMPHS.

The direct and almost instant benefits of Mechanical Inventions to their originators have been thus eloquently illustrated in the _Edinburgh Review_:--"Contributing, as they do, to our most immediate and pressing wants--appealing to the eye by their magnitude, and often by their grandeur, and associated, in many cases, with the warmer impulses of humanity and personal safety--the labours of the mechanist and engineer acquire a contemporary celebrity, which is not vouchsafed to the results of scientific research, or to the productions of literature and the fine arts. The gigantic steam-vessel, which expedites and facilitates the intercourse of nations--the canal, which unites two distant seas--the bridge and the aqueduct, which span an impassable valley--the harbour and the break-water, which shelter our vessels of peace and of war--the railway, which hurries us along on the wings of mechanism, and the light beacon which throws its directing beams over the deep--address themselves to the secular interests of every individual, and obtain for the engineer who invented or who planned them, a high and a well-merited popular reputation."

THE ELGIN MARBLES.

These beautiful relics of Grecian antiquity cost the Earl of Elgin 74,000_l._, of which sum he barely received one-half from Government; so that Lord Byron's imputation to the Earl of a mercantile spirit in the transaction is notoriously unjust.

RALEIGH A CHEMIST.

During his confinement in the Tower of London, Sir Walter Raleigh devoted a considerable portion of his time to chemical and pharmaceutical investigations; and interesting it is to see how his unsubdued spirit enabled him to make the most of his misfortunes, to surmount difficulties, and to turn ordinary things to extraordinary purposes,--greatly, no doubt, to the amazement of those about him, who marvelled much to behold the splendid courtier, and the captain of a happier day, earnestly employing himself with chemical stills and crucibles in a vacant hen-house! "He has converted," says Sir W. Wade, the lieutenant of the Tower, in a letter to Cecil, "a little hen-house in the garden into a still-house, and here he doth spend his time all day in distillations."

MR. BABBAGE'S CALCULATING MACHINE.

A calculating machine is a fair subject for a joke. In May, 1839, when an additional grant was applied for in the House of Commons, in order to complete Mr. Babbage's machine, Mr. Wakley inquired whether it was likely to be of any use to the public? Upon this, Sir Robert Peel felicitously replied, that "the machine should be put to calculate the time at which it would be of any use." The calculating machine has certainly not yet been put to any more practical purpose.

HERSCHEL'S LOVE OF MUSIC.

Sir William Herschel was a good musician, yet such was his ardour for astronomical discovery, that at some benefit concert which he gave, he had his telescope fixed in a window, and made his observations between the acts.

POWER OF THE LEVER.

Archimedes said, "Give me a lever long enough, and a prop strong enough, and with my own weight I will move the world." "But," says Dr. Arnott, "he would have required to move with the velocity of a cannon-ball for millions of years, to alter the position of the earth a small part of an inch. This feat of Archimedes is, in mathematical truth, performed by every man who leaps from the ground; for he kicks the world away from him whenever he rises, and attracts it again when he falls."

AN ELECTRIFYING MACHINE IN PERSIA.

When Sir James Malcolm was in Persia, on his first expedition, an electrifying machine which he took with him was one of the chief means of astonishing his Persian friends; and with its effects he surprised and alarmed all, from majesty itself to the lowest peasant.

At Isfahan, all were delighted with the electric machine, except one renowned doctor and lecturer of the college, who, envious of the popularity gained by this display of superior science, contended publicly that the effects produced were moral, not physical; that it was the mummery the Europeans practised, and the state of the nervous agitation they excited, which produced an ideal shock; but he expressed his conviction that a man of true firmness of mind would stand unmoved by all that could be produced out of the _glass bottle_, as he scoffingly termed the machine. He was invited to the next experiment, the day arrived, and he came accordingly.

This doctor was called "Red-stockings," from his usually wearing scarlet hose. He was, notwithstanding his learning and reputed science, often made an object of mirth in the circles of the great and wealthy at Isfahan, to whom he furnished constant amusement, from the pertinacity with which he maintained his dogmas.

Hence, "Red-stockings," with all his philosophy, was not overwise. Nevertheless, he maintained his ground in the first society, by means common in Persia, as in other countries: he was, in fact, a little of the fool,[5] and not too much of the honest. This impression of his character, combined with his presumption, made Sir John Malcolm and his party less scrupulous in their preparations to render him an example for all who might hereafter doubt the effects of their boasted electricity; indeed, their Persian visitors seemed anxious that the effect should be such as to satisfy the man that had dared them to the trial--that it was physical, not moral.

The philosopher, notwithstanding various warnings, came boldly up, and took hold of the chain with both hands, planted his feet firmly, shut his teeth, and evidently called forth all his resolution to resist the shock. It was given; and poor "Red-stockings" dropped on the floor, as if he had been shot. There was a momentary alarm; but, on his almost instant recovery, and it being explained that the effect had been increased by the determination to resist it, all gave way to one burst of laughter. The good-natured philosopher took no offence. He muttered something about the reaction of the feelings after being overstrained, but admitted there was more in the glass bottle than he had anticipated.

Footnote 5:

"_Poco di matto_" is deemed by the Italians an essential quality in a great man's companion.

HOW TO MEASURE THE SHOCK OF AN EARTHQUAKE.