A History of Inventions, Discoveries, and Origins, Volume II (of 2)

Krunitz says[653 - Encyclop. vol. xxix. p. 548.], but on what authority I do not know, that Lopez de Gomes relates, that in his time a very fine sky-blue colour was prepared in Hispaniola. If the person here alluded to be Lopez de Gomara, who accompanied Ferdinand Cortez as chaplain[654 - His works may be found in Barcia’s Collection, vol. ii.], this would be the oldest testimony that could be expected, and would correspond with the account given by Labat. But I shall leave the further investigation of this subject to others, and observe, that the cultivation of indigo was begun in Carolina in 1747, and according to Anderson, was encouraged the year following by premiums.

This article, therefore, was brought from both the Indies to Europe, and recommended itself so much by the superiority and richness of its dye, by the facility with which it could be used, and the advantages attending it, that it suddenly banished from all dye-houses the European woad, which was cultivated, in particular, in Thuringia in Germany, in Languedoc in France, and in the neighbourhood of Rieti in the dominions of the church. At first, a small quantity of indigo only was added to the woad, by which the latter was improved; more was afterwards gradually used, and at last the quantity became so large, that the small admixture of woad served only to revive the fermentation of the indigo, but was not capable itself of communicating any colour. It was soon observed that every yard of cloth could be dyed somewhat cheaper when indigo was used along with woad, than when the latter was employed alone, according to the ancient method. Germany then lost a production by which farmers, merchants, carriers, and others, acquired great riches.

In the sixteenth century people began, in many countries, to make considerable improvements in dyeing. For this purpose, new dye-stuffs, both indigenous and foreign, were subjected to experiment, and trials were made with salts which had never before been employed. In this manner dyers sometimes obtained colours which pleased by their novelty and beauty; but it needs excite no surprise that many new methods of dyeing did not produce the desired effect. Many communicated colours which were agreeable to the eye, but they soon faded; and some rendered the dyed cloth so tender that it soon rotted on the shopkeepers’ shelves. Governments conceiving it then necessary to do something for the security of the purchaser, considered the imperfection of the art as a premeditated deception; and as it was at that time supposed that some pigments could give durable and genuine colours, and others fading or false ones; and also that the pernicious effects of salts could not be prevented or moderated, they, in general, prohibited the use of all new materials from which hurtful consequences had been observed to arise.

Legislators are neither almighty, omniscient, nor infallible. With the best views, and a firm determination to discharge their duty, they may recommend things hurtful, and prohibit others that might be attended with advantage. Were their commands and prohibitions inviolable, insuperable, and irresistible, they would often confine the progress of the arts and sciences, and render useful inventions impossible. But the people, when they have not entirely become machines, know how to elude, even at great personal hazard, faulty regulations, and by prohibited ways to obtain greater advantages than those which formed the object of the orders issued by their government. This was the case in regard to the art of dyeing in the sixteenth century.

A recess of the diet held in 1577, prohibited, under the severest penalties, the newly invented pernicious, deceitful, eating, and corrosive dye called the devil’s dye, for which vitriol and other eating substances were used instead of woad. This prohibition was renewed in 1594 and 1603, with the addition of this remark, that, in consequence of the weight of the bad dyes, a pound of undyed silk for sewing or embroidery would produce two or three pounds of dyed[655 - All these prohibitions may be found in Schreber’s Beschreibung des Waidtes. Halle, 1752, 4to, in the appendix, pp. 1, 2.].

Allusion seems to be made here to black, which at that time was the colour of the higher orders. It appears that at this period astringent juices and green vitriol began to be used more than they had been formerly, and cloth when too long boiled with these substances, becomes exceedingly tender: black cloth is even sometimes spoilt in this manner at present. It is also true that cloth receives the greatest addition in weight when dyed black, and the next greatest when dyed blue. I am not acquainted with accurate experiments in regard to the weight which cloth acquires by dyeing; but one may safely assert, that it is stated far too high in the recess of the diet. Fifteen ounces of raw silk lose by that kind of scouring which the French call décruement, four ounces; consequently white silk weighs eleven ounces, but after it is dyed black its weight is increased to thirteen ounces. In general, a black dye increases the weight of cloth a fifth more than bright dyes.

As indigo after this soon became common, and the sale of woad was injured, the first prohibition against the former was issued by Saxony in the year 1650; and because government well knew how much depends on a name, when one wishes to render an object odious or estimable, the prohibition was couched in terms which seemed to show that indigo was included among those eating substances, termed in the recess already mentioned devil’s dyes. In the year 1652, Duke Ernest the Pious caused a proposal to be made to the diet by his envoy, Dr. Hœnnen, that indigo should be entirely banished from the empire, and that an exclusive privilege should be granted to those who dyed with woad. This was followed by an imperial prohibition on the 21st of April 1654, in which every thing ordered in regard to the devil’s dyes is repeated, with this addition, that great care should be taken to prevent the private introduction of indigo, by which the trade in woad was lessened, dyed articles injured, and money carried out of the country. The elector took the earliest opportunity the same year to make known and enforce this prohibition with great severity in his dominions[656 - Schreber ut supra, p. 11.].

The people of Nuremberg, who at that time cultivated woad, went still further. They made a law that their dyers should annually take an oath not to use indigo; and at present they are obliged to do the same thing, though indigo is as necessary to them as to others; a most indecent disregard to religion, which, however, is not without example. In the French monarchy, where all offices were purchased and sold, every counsellor of parliament, on his entrance, was obliged to swear that he had not obtained his place by money, until at length some one had the courage to refuse taking a false oath. Thus also in Germany many placemen must swear that they will observe all the orders of government, yet many of them are daily violated, and indeed cannot be observed, or at any rate, not without great mischief and confusion.

What was done in Germany in regard to Thuringia, was done in France in regard to Languedoc. In consequence of an urgent representation by the states of that province, the use of indigo was forbidden in 1598; and this prohibition was afterwards repeated several times. But in the well-known edict of 1669, in which Colbert separated the fine from the common dyers, it was stated that indigo should be used without woad; and in 1737 dyers were left at liberty to use indigo alone, or to employ a mixture of indigo and woad[657 - See Mémoires de l’Acad. à Paris, année 1740.].

In England, where, I believe, woad was not at that time cultivated, the first mention of indigo in the laws occurs in the year 1581, under the reign of Elizabeth, not, however, on account of a blue but a black dye. No woollen articles were to be dyed black with the gall-nut, madder or other materials, till they had received the first ground, or been rendered blue by woad, or woad and indigo together[658 - Statutes at Large, vol. ii. Lond. 1735, p. 250. [Dr. Ure, however, says that indigo was actually denounced as a dangerous drug, and forbidden to be used by our Parliament in the reign of Queen Elizabeth. An Act was passed authorizing searchers to burn both it and logwood in every dye-house where they could be found. This Act remained in full force till the time of Charles II., that is, for a great part of a century.]]. In like manner it was long believed that no durable black could be produced unless the article were first dyed in a blue pan. Hats also were not considered to be properly dyed unless traces of a blue tint could be discovered on the place where they were cut[659 - Marperger’s Beschreibung des Hutmacher-handwerks. Altenburg, 1719, 8vo, p. 85.]. At present our dyers can communicate a durable black without a blue ground, as well as dye a fixed blue without woad; and in every part of Europe foreign indigo will continue to be the most common material for dyeing, till its high price render it necessary to obtain a similar pigment from indigenous plants[660 - [This observation has been verified; for tolerably large quantities of indigo are now extracted from the Polygonum tinctorium, which is cultivated in some parts of France and Belgium for that purpose.]].

[The dye-stuff of indigo is obtained from the plant by allowing it to ferment with water; during this process it subsides in the form of a blue deposit, which is collected and dried. As it occurs in commerce, it contains several impurities, such as lime, silica, alumina, and oxide of iron, in addition to the colouring matters, which are three in number, a brown, red and blue; as also some glutinous matter.

The chief localities of the indigo-plant at present are Bengal and Guatimala, though of late years the exportation from the latter has been materially checked by the disturbed state of Central America. In the early period of our occupation of India, indigo formed a leading branch of the Company’s trade; but the rude manufacture of the native population was in the course of time expelled from the markets of Europe by the more skilfully prepared drug of America and the West Indies. Soon after the peace of 1783, the West Indian process of manufacture was introduced into Bengal, and the directors having relaxed their prohibitory system so far as to permit the application of British capital and skill to the cultivation of the plant on the alluvial depositions of the Ganges, the exportations were gradually increased, and the American and West Indian indigo almost entirely driven from the market. The manufacture was also introduced into Oude and the other north-western districts of the great plain of the Ganges; and in later periods into some of the Madras provinces, into Java and the Philippine Islands. The indigo produced everywhere else is, however, very secondary both in quantity and quality to that of Bengal and Bahar, the soil and climate of which seem to be particularly congenial to the plant. The average supply of indigo at present may be estimated as follows: – Bengal provinces, 34,500 chests, or about 9,000,000 lbs.; other countries, including Madras and Guatimala, 8500 chests; total, 43,000 chests. Of this there are consumed in the United Kingdom, 11,500 chests, or about 3,000,000 lbs.; France, 8000 chests; Germany and the rest of Europe, 13,500 chests; Persia, 3500 chests; India, 2500 chests; United States, 2000 chests; other countries, 2000 chests; total, 43,000 chests, or upwards of 11,000,000 lbs. The quantity imported into the United Kingdom in 1840 amounted to 5,831,269 lbs., and the quantity entered for home consumption amounted to 3,011,990 lbs. Upwards of four-fifths of the imports are from the East Indies; the remainder chiefly from the West Indies, Guatimala, Peru and the Philippine Islands. The surplus imported beyond the quantity consumed is re-exported to Germany, Russia, Italy, Holland and other parts of the continent of Europe. France and the United States derive their main supplies by direct importation from Calcutta.]

VANES. WEATHERCOCKS

If the poet Seneca was well informed, mankind, in the infancy of navigation, had no particular names for distinguishing the principal winds[661 - Medea, ver. 316.]. This is not at all incredible; because with their rafts and floats, which were the first vessels, they for a long time ventured out to sea only so far that they could easily return to the shore; and therefore while navigation continued in this state, they had little reason to trouble themselves about the direction of the winds. It is more certain that those nations respecting whom we have the oldest information, distinguished by names the four principal winds only. This is generally proved by a passage in Homer, where he intends to mention all the winds, and names only four[662 - Odyss. v. 295.]; but this proof is of little weight; for what poet at present would, with the like view, think of boxing the compass, or of introducing into a poem the names of all the thirty-two points? Would he not rather be satisfied with the names of the four chief winds alone? If more names, therefore, were usual in Homer’s time, he would not consider it necessary to name them. In another passage he names only two winds[663 - Iliad, ix. 5.]; and from these some have endeavoured to prove that no more were then known; but this assertion indeed is completely refuted by the passage first quoted. It can, however, be easily proved, that for a long time names were given to the four principal winds only.

It is easily seen what at first gave rise to this distinction. The sun at noon stands always over one point of the horizon, which appears to the observer as a circle, having the place where he himself is at its centre. This point is called the meridian or south, and the one opposite to it the north. If the observer turns his face towards the north, he will have on his right-hand the east, and on his left the west. The space between these principal winds contains ninety degrees, or a right angle. The number, however, must soon have been raised to eight, and this division was usual in the time of Aristotle[664 - Aristot. Meteorol. ii. cap. 5 et 6. On this account, as Salmasius remarks, the book De Mundo cannot belong to Aristotle, as mention is made in it of twelve winds.]. Afterwards twelve points in the heavens were adopted, also as many winds; and in the time of Vitruvius twenty-four were distinguished and named, though this division was very little used. To determine the names, however, employed in the last two divisions is attended with some difficulties; and it almost appears as if writers did not always apply to them the same meaning.

The Greeks considered Æolus as the first person who made navigators acquainted with the winds. He is said to have ruled over the Volcanic islands, afterwards named the Æolian; and if this be true, he would certainly have a good opportunity of observing the weather, and marking the winds by the smoke continually rising up there from burning volcanoes. This celebrated personage, who received Ulysses on his return from the Trojan war, by the knowledge thus obtained may have assisted navigators, who afterwards made known the services which he rendered to them.

The antiquity of the division into thirty-two points, used at present, I am not able to determine. Riccioli thinks that they have been employed since the time of Charles the Great, but I do not know whether this can be proved. That assertion perhaps is founded only on the opinion, that this emperor gave German names to the winds and the quarters of the world. This indeed is stated by his historian Eginhart, who mentions the names, which I shall here insert, together with the Latin names added by Eginhart, and those usual at present[665 - De Vita et Gestis Caroli Magni. Traj. 1711, 4to, pp. 132, 133.].

It has however been long since remarked, that these names are much older than Charles the Great[666 - Adelung’s Wörterbuch, under the word East.]; and it is highly probable that they were only more accurately defined, or publicly confirmed by this prince, or that in his time they came into general use. How often have early inventions been ascribed to sovereigns, though they were only made in their reign! Even whole nations have been said to be descended from those princes under whom they first became known to foreigners; as, for example, the Poles from Lech, and the Bohemians from Zech.

Charles, however, did not give names to thirty-two, but to twelve winds. Nor was he the first who added to the four cardinal points eight others, for the same thing is asserted of many. But it deserves to be remarked, that in Charles’s names one can discover traces of that ingenious mode of denoting all the winds with four words; that is to say, by different combinations of East, West, South, and North. It is certain that the names of the different points and winds used by all the European nations, the Italians only excepted, are of German origin, as well as the greater part of the terms of art employed in navigation and naval architecture.

It appears to me not improbable that the division used at present was introduced soon after the invention of the magnetic needle; at least Honorius, surnamed Augustodunensis[667 - Of the writings of this monk, whom I shall again have occasion to quote, separate editions are scarce. They are however to be found in Maxima Bibliotheca Patrum, tom. xx.], who must have flourished before the year 1125, speaks only of twelve winds; as do also Gervasius in 1211, and Vincent de Beauvois in the middle of the thirteenth century, who gives from Isidorus, who lived about the year 636, the twelve Latin names used by Eginhart[668 - Speculum Natur. iv. 34, p. 254.].

It can scarcely be doubted that means for indicating the winds were invented at a very early period. I here allude to vanes, flags, and every other apparatus by which the direction of the wind can be conveniently and accurately discovered, and similar to those erected at present on many private houses, on most of our church steeples, and on board ships. I must however confess that I have hitherto scarcely observed any trace of them among the Greeks and the Romans. I can find no account of them in works where all the parts of edifices are named; where ships and everything belonging to them are expressly described; nothing in Pollux, and nothing in any of the poets. I am unacquainted also with any old Greek or Latin word that can be applied to an apparatus for pointing out the wind. In the edition of Kirsch’s German and Latin Dictionary, printed in 1754, we find Wetterhahn (a weathercock) petalum, triton; but the latter term is borrowed from the tower of Andronicus, of which I shall have occasion to speak hereafter; and neither this word nor petulum, or petulæ, arum, which Kirsch gives also, occurs in this sense in any ancient author; and the case is the same with pinnacella, ventilogium, aurologium, and other names which are to be found in some dictionaries.

I am acquainted with no older information in regard to an apparatus for observing the winds, than what is given by Vitruvius respecting the tower built at Athens by Andronicus Cyrrhestes, that is, of Cyrrhus, a town in Syria. This tower, which was built of marble, in an octagonal form, had on each side a representation of that wind opposite to which it was placed. Its summit terminated in a small spire, on which was a copper triton, made to turn in such a manner as to present its front to the wind, and to point with a rod held in its right-hand to the image of the wind blowing at the time[669 - Vitruv. i. 6, p. 41.]. This tower is still standing; and a description and figure of it may be seen in the travels of Spon and Wheeler, and in those also of Pocock[670 - See Stuart’s Antiquities of Athens, i. 3, tab. i. – xix.]. The figures representing the winds, which are larger than the life, are executed in basso-relievo, and correspond to the seasons at which they generally blow. At the top of each side, under the architrave, the name of the wind is inscribed in Greek characters. Boreas, the North wind, holds in his hand a mussel-shell, which seems to denote his peculiar power over the sea. The Zephyr has its bosom full of flowers, because it prevails in March, at the time when the flowers chiefly blow in Greece; and similar attributes are assigned to the rest.

Varro had an apparatus of the same kind at his farm[671 - Varro De Re Rust. iii. 5. 17. Our common weathercocks and vanes, when well made, and preserved from rust, show the point from which the wind proceeds, but do not tell their names. By the vanes on church steeples, one knows that our churches stand in a direction from east to west, and that the altar is placed in the eastern end. On other buildings an arrow, which points to the north, is placed under the vane.]. Within the building was a circle, in which the eight winds were represented, and an index, like that of a clock, pointed to that wind which was blowing at the time. Nothing therefore was necessary but to look at the ceiling to know from what quarter the wind came. I have seen an apparatus of the same kind on some exchange, either at Lubec or Rotterdam. Varro calls the tower of Andronicus horologium, a word which Salmasius wishes to change into aurologium. But it contained also a sun-dial, as we are assured by Pocock, who observed the necessary hour-lines; and therefore it is not improbable, that the people, who through the want of clocks would oftener look to the dial than to the weathercock, gave to the tower a name alluding to the former rather than to the latter.

Du Cange says, that a triton, by way of weathercock, was placed on the temple of Androgeus at Rome; but I am unacquainted with the source from which he derived this information, and of that temple I have not been able to obtain any account[672 - Du Cange refers to Anonymus de Arte Architectonica, cap. 2.]. Whether the tritons placed on the temple of Saturn at Rome were indicators of the wind, or whether they had a learned signification, as Macrobius asserts, I will not venture to determine[673 - Saturn. i. 8, p. 223.]. It is probable that the pillar, some remains of which were found at Gaeta (Cajeta), in the kingdom of Naples, and on which the names of the winds were cut out in Greek and Latin, served as a wind indicator also.

But it is more than probable that an apparatus for pointing out the wind, similar to that at Athens, was erected also at Constantinople. At least I consider as such what was called by some anemodulium, and by others anemoderium; the information respecting which has not, as I conceive, been hitherto understood, not even by Banduri. In my opinion it was not a building or tower, but a column furnished with a vane, somewhat similar to what is still seen in many places on the sea coast, where a high pole is erected with a flag. This pillar, if I may be allowed the expression, consisted entirely of copper; it was square, and in height not inferior to the loftiest columns in the city. Its summit formed a pyramid, and, as I conjecture, an octagonal one, upon which stood a female figure that turned round with every wind, and consequently was a vane, only not a triton, as at Athens. Below it, on each side of the pyramid, were seen a great many figures, which I will venture to assert were attributes or images of the winds, to which the female figure pointed. Nicetas says, that there were observed among them birds, agricultural implements, the sea with shipping, fishing-boats, and naked cupids sporting with apples, which in my opinion denoted the different seasons in which each wind was accustomed to blow[674 - The passage of Nicetas may be found in Fabricii Biblioth. Græca, vi. p. 407, and in Banduri Imperium Orientale, Par. 1711, fol. tom. i. lib. vi. p. 108. Nicetas speaks of it again in lib. ii. de Andronico, Venet. 1729, fol. p. 175. He there says that the emperor was desirous of placing his image on the anemodulium, where the cupids stood. Another writer, in Banduri Imper. Orient. i. p. iii. lib. i. p. 17, says expressly that the twelve winds were represented on it, and that it was erected with much astronomical knowledge by Heliodorus, in the time of Leo Isauricus.].

It is not improbable that the whole pillar was constructed of different pieces of copper, cast singly and then joined together; and it appears that neither Nicetas, nor Cedrenus, nor the Latins, who in the thirteenth century pulled down and melted the numerous objects of art, plundered from various cities by the emperor Constantine to ornament his capital, were acquainted with the purpose for which this pillar was originally destined, or the meaning of the emblematical figures represented upon it. Nay, there is even reason to think that the Greeks themselves, at this time, were so ignorant as to believe such objects to be the productions of magic. According to Cedrenus, this costly wind indicator was erected by Theodosius the Great, and according to others by Leo Isauricus. Were the first assertion true, it would belong to the fourth century, and in the second case to the eighth; but I cannot help suspecting that it was constructed before the time of Theodosius. The female figure which indicated the wind, was, according to Nicetas, called anemodoulon, but according to Cedrenus anemoderion. The former denotes a person who belongs to the wind; the latter one who contends with the wind; and both these appellations are well suited to a vane or wind indicator. If my explanation be correct, this work of art at Constantinople had nothing in common with the statue of Jupiter constructed by Lysippus at Tarentum[675 - Plin. Hist. Nat. xxxiv. 7. sect. 18. p. 647.]. The latter was forty cubits in height; and what excited great astonishment was, that though it would shake when pushed with the hand, it withstood the force of the most violent storms. I should rather compare the statue of Lysippus to those moveable masses of rock which are mentioned by various authors, both ancient and modern.

It is not improbable that there may have been wind indicators of this kind in other places, and that more passages alluding to them, not hitherto remarked, may be found in different authors. Professor Michaelis, who was desirous to assist me in my researches, pointed out to me an account, undoubtedly written before the year 1151[676 - Geographia Nubiensis. Parisiis, 1619, 4to, p. 118.], in which it is stated that there was at Hems, in Syria, formerly called Emessa, a high tower, on the summit of which was a copper statue of a horseman that turned with every wind. It is worthy of remark, that under the vane there were figures, among which was that of a scorpion; in all probability the emblem of some season.

In Europe, the custom of placing vanes on the summits of the church-steeples is very old; and as these vanes were made in the figure of a cock, they have thence been denominated weathercocks. In the Latin, therefore, of the middle ages, we meet with the words gallus and ventilogium. The latter is used by Radulphus, who wrote about the year 1270[677 - In Vita S. Richardi Cicestrensis. See also Du Cange.]. Mention of weathercocks occurs in the ninth[678 - In Ughelli Italia Sacra, Romæ, 1652, fol. iv. p. 735, we find the following inscription on a weathercock then existing at Brixen: – “Dominus Rampertus Episc. gallum hunc fieri præcepit an. 820.”], eleventh, twelfth and thirteenth[679 - Raynerus; cap. 5.] centuries. There is no doubt that the cock was intended as an emblem of clerical vigilance. In the ages of ignorance the clergy frequently styled themselves the cocks of the Almighty, whose duty it was, like the cock which roused Peter, to call the people to repentance, or at any rate to church[680 - Ambrosius, v. cap. 24. – Vossius de Idol. iii. cap. 86. – Pierii Valeriani Hieroglyphica. Franc. ad M. 1678, p. 288.]. The English, therefore, are mistaken when they suppose that the figure of a cock was first made choice of for vanes in the fourteenth century, under the reign of Edward III., in order to ridicule the French, with whom they were then at war; and that the custom of cock-throwing, that is to say, of throwing sticks at a cock exposed with his wings tied, as then practised, took its rise at the same time.

In France, in the twelfth century, none but noblemen were allowed to have vanes on their houses; nay, at one time this was the privilege of those who, at the storming of a town, first planted their standards on the ramparts. These vanes were painted with the knights’ arms, or the arms were cut out in them, and in that case they were called panonceaux[681 - Dictionnaire à Trevoux, 1704, fol. article Girouette.].

Flags or vanes on ships occur very early, but they are always mentioned on account of their use in making signals. They were of various forms and colours; were sometimes drawn up, and sometimes taken down; placed sometimes on the right and sometimes on the left side of the ship, and were changed in various other ways, directions for which may be seen in the Tactics of the emperor Leo. They were named vexilla, flammulæ, also flammula and banda, and the last two appellations occur in the works of the younger Greek writers[682 - Hirtius de Bello Alexand. cap. 45. – Tacit. Annal. 22. – Livius, lib. xxxvii. cap. 24. – Leonis Tactica, cap. 19, § 40, 42, pp. 342, 343, edit. Meursii. Lugd. Bat. 1612, 4to.].

But though the oldest writers on the art of naval warfare, such as Vegetius, recommend a knowledge of the winds, I have not yet met with any certain account of apparatus for determining the direction of them on board a ship. Before the discovery of the magnetic needle, such accuracy as is necessary at present would have been superfluous; yet naval commanders must long before have had some means of distinguishing at least the twelve winds then defined, though no traces of them are to be found in the works which have been accidentally preserved to us.

Scheffer[683 - De Milit. Navali. Upsaliæ, 1654.], who, as is well-known, collected from the works of the ancients all the terms of art applicable to navigation, thinks that the band, tænia, affixed to a pole at the stern of the ship[684 - Pollux, i. 9, § 90, p. 61.], did not serve so much for an ornament as to indicate the course of the wind. He is, however, able to produce no other authority for this opinion than a passage in one of Cicero’s letters, which has been changed and amended, till it at length seems to say that Cicero had resolved to embark, because the vanes had announced a favourable wind[685 - Epist. ad Atticum, v. 12.].

I must acknowledge that at present I can produce no older information in regard to vanes used on board ship, to indicate the course of the wind, than of the eleventh century, taken from the life of Emma, the consort of Canute the Great, king of Denmark, Norway and England, the author of which was an eye-witness of what he relates. Describing the magnificent Norman fleet sent to England in the year 1013, he says that birds, which turned round with the wind, were placed on the top of the masts[686 - The Encomium Emmæ is printed in Du Chesne, Historiæ Normannor. Scriptor. Paris, 1619, fol.].

At that time, therefore, instead of the flags used at present, a vane, shaped like a bird, was placed at the summit of the mast; perhaps also the figure of a cock, as the emblem of vigilance, but in this case not of clerical vigilance. In the cathedral of Bayeux, in France, is a piece of tapestry, representing the actions of William the Conqueror, executed with the needle, either by his consort or under her direction, in which vanes are seen at the top of the masts in many of the ships[687 - This honourable memorial of the last half of the eleventh century is explained and illustrated by a figure in Mémoires de l’Academ. des Inscript. Paris, 1733, 4to, vol. viii. p. 602.].

[Anemoscopes, or instruments for showing the direction of the wind, are now in constant use in meteorological establishments; the indications are made upon dials, and the apparatus does not differ in principle from that described by Beckmann.

Anemometers, or instruments for measuring the power or force of the wind, have also been contrived of various kinds. The first was invented by Wolf. In this the wind acted upon four sails somewhat resembling those of a windmill, the motion being communicated by cog-wheels to a lever loaded with a weight. When the wind acted upon the sails, the bar rose, this motion continuing until the increased leverage of the weight counterpoised the moving power of the wind. Others on a different principle have been made by Lind, Regnier, Martin, and a very beautiful instrument for this purpose, constructed by Mr. Dent, may be seen at Lloyd’s room in the Royal Exchange.]

GILDING

The astonishing extensibility of gold, a property in which it far surpasses all other metals, induced mankind, at an early period, to attempt beating it into thin plates, as the value of it led them to the art of covering or gilding things of every kind with leaves of it. It is proved by Herodotus, that the Egyptians were accustomed to gild wood and metals[688 - Herodot. lib. ii. 63. See Winkelmann Hist. de l’Art. – Caylus, Recueil d’Antiquités, i. p. 193. Gori seems to have had in his possession two Egyptian gilt figures. See Mus. Etr. t. i. p. 51.]; and gilding is frequently mentioned in the books of the Old Testament[689 - In the books of the Old Testament gilding and gold plates are clearly mentioned. Moses caused several parts of the sanctuary to be overlaid with gold. 1st. The ark of shittim wood was covered with gold both on the outside and inside, Exodus, chap. xxv. ver. 11; also the staves, ver. 13. 2nd. The wooden table with its staves, ver. 23 and 28. 3rd. The altar of burnt incense, chap. xxx. ver. 3. 4th. The boards which formed the sides of the tabernacle, chap. xxvi. ver. 29.Solomon caused various parts of the temple to be overlaid with gold. 1st. The whole inside of the house, 1 Kings, chap. vi. ver. 21 and 22. 2nd. The altar of burnt incense, ver. 20 and 22. 3rd. The wooden cherubim above seventeen feet in height, ver. 28. 4th. The floor, ver. 30. 5th. The doors of the oracle, on which were carved cherubims, palm-trees and open flowers, ver. 32 and 35, so that the gold accurately exhibited the figures of the carved work.Now the question is, whether all these were gilt, or covered, or overlaid with gold plates. But when the passages are compared with each other, I am inclined to think that gilding is denoted.“The Hebrews probably brought the art of gilding with them from Egypt, where it seems to have been very old, as gilding is found not only on mummies, the antiquity of which indeed is uncertain; but, if I am not mistaken, in the oldest temples, on images. It appears also, that in the time of Moses the Hebrews understood the art both of gilding and of overlaying with plates of gold, and expressed both by the general term צפה.”]. The gold plates, however, used for this purpose, as may be readily conceived, were not so thin as those made at present; and for this reason, the gilding on statues, which have lain many centuries in the earth, appears to be still entire. Winkelmann says[690 - Page 534.], that among the ruins of two apartments in the imperial palace, on the palatine hill, in the Villa Farnese, the gold ornaments were found to be as fresh as if they had been newly applied, though these apartments, in consequence of being buried under the earth, were exceedingly damp. The circular bands of sky-blue, with small figures in gold, could not be seen without admiration. The gilding also is still preserved in the ruins of Persepolis.

But, in the time of Pliny, the art of gold-beating was carried so far at Rome, that an ounce of gold could be beat into seven hundred and fifty leaves and more, each four square inches in size[691 - Lib. xxxiii. 3. The thicker gold-leaf was called, at that time, bractea Prænestina; the thinner, bractea quæstoria.]. I shall not compare this result with what the art can do at present, because the account of Pliny is not the most accurate, and because the conversion of the old measures into the modern standard is always attended with uncertainty. Buonarotti, however, who made some researches on this subject[692 - Osservazioni Istoriche sopra alcum Medaglioni Antichi. In Roma, 1698, fol. p. 370.], is of opinion that the gold used at Rome for fire-gilding in his time, that is, at the end of the seventeenth century, was beat six times as thin; and that the gold employed for gilding wood and other things, without the application of fire, was twenty-two times as thin as the gold leaf made at Rome in the time of Pliny. But this Italian author, as appears to me, has, through too great precipitation, translated the words “septingenæ et quinquagenæ bracteæ” fifty and seventy. Gold, however, at that time, was beat so thin at Rome, that Lucretius compares it to a spider’s web, and Martial to a vapour[693 - Lucret. iv. 730. – Martial. viii. 33.].

I have, however, not yet met with any information in regard to the method in which the ancient artists beat the gold, or the instruments and apparatus they employed for that purpose. But the German monk Theophilus, whose real name seems to have been Rüger, and who, as Lessing thinks, lived in the ninth, but, according to Morelli, in the twelfth century, describes the process nearly as it is at present[694 - Lessing zur Geschichte und Litteratur, iv. p. 309.]. The gold, at that time, was beat between parchment, in the same manner as is still practised; and the artists knew how to prevent the gold from adhering to the parchment, by covering it over with burnt ochre reduced to a very fine powder, and then rubbing it smooth with a tooth. With the like view, our gold-beaters rub over with a fine bolus the thin paper used for making the books into which they put their gold leaf, in order to preserve it. But the flatting-mills, between the steel rollers of which cast and hammered ingots of gold are at present reduced to thin leaves, seem not to have been then known, at least this monk makes no mention of them. Lessing, to whom we are indebted for this curious fragment of Theophilus, is of opinion that each artist at that time was obliged to beat the gold leaf which he used, because gold-beating was not then a distinct branch of business. This I will not controvert; but it is no proof of it, that the monk taught the art to his brethren; for in convents the clergy endeavoured to make everything they used, in order that they might purchase as little as possible.

During the progress of the art, it being found that parchment was too thick and hard for the above purpose, workmen endeavoured to procure some finer substance, and at length discovered that the skin of an unborn calf was the most convenient. By means of this improvement, gold leaf was made much thinner than it had ever been before possible; but the art was brought to still greater perfection by employing that fine pellicle which is detached from the gut of an ox or a cow. Lancellotti, who wrote in the first half of the seventeenth century[695 - L’oggidi overo gl’ingegni non inferiori à passati. Venet. 1636. 8vo.], says that this invention was made by the German gold-beaters, when, in consequence of the war, they were not able to obtain from Flanders the skins of unborn calves.

I have often heard that the preparation of this pellicle, which the French call baudruche and the Dutch liezen, and which is so thin that two of them must be pasted together, is a secret, and that the best is obtained from England. But in the year 1785, when I paid a visit to a very ingenious gold-beater at Hamburg, he assured me that he prepared this substance himself, and that the case was the same with most of the gold-beaters in Germany. Even in England, in the year 1763, this art was known only to two or three persons, who practised it as a business, but kept it so secret that Lewis was not able to obtain a proper account of it[696 - Zusammenhang der Künste. Zurich, 1764, 8vo, i. p. 75. For further information see Traité des Monnoies, par Abot de Bazinghen. Paris, 1764, 4to, i. p. 102.]. In Ireland also this skin is prepared and sent to England[697 - Rutty’s Natural History of Dublin, 1772, 2 vols. 8vo, i. p. 264.]. When the French, in the beginning of the revolutionary war, hoped to out-manœuvre the Germans by the use of aerostatic machines, it became of some importance to them to obtain a supply of these skins. On this account, the Commission des armes et poudres drew up instructions for preparing them, which they caused to be printed and distributed to all the butchers. At Strasburg they were printed in French, and at the same time in German, but in many parts faulty and unintelligible.

About the year 1621, Mersenne excited general astonishment, when he showed that the Parisian gold-beaters could beat an ounce of gold into 1600 leaves, which together covered a surface of 105 square feet. But in 1711, when the pellicles, discovered by the Germans, came to be used in Paris, Reaumur found that an ounce of gold, in the form of a cube, five and a quarter lines at most in length, breadth, and thickness, and which covered only a surface of about twenty-seven square lines, could be so extended by the gold-beaters as to cover a surface of more than one hundred and forty-six and a half square feet. This extension, therefore, is nearly one-half more than was possible about a century before.

When these skins are worn out by the hammer of the gold-beater, they are employed, under the name of English skin, for plasters, or properly to unite small wounds. By the English they are called gold-beaters’ skin[698 - Von Uffenbach Reisen, iii. p. 218.]; but, since silk covered with isinglass and Peruvian balsam, which in Germany is named English plaster, for the Germans at present call every thing English, has become the mode, this skin is much less used[699 - I was told that Professor Pickel of Würzburg prepares gold-beaters’ skin by means of a varnish, which renders it fitter for use; and that a student of that place had found out the art of making it transparent, in order that the wound might be seen.]. I mention this that I might have an opportunity of remarking, that in the middle of the twelfth century, in the Levant at least, a very thin pellicle was in like manner used for wounds. For when the emperor, John Comnenus, accidentally wounded himself in the hand with a poisoned arrow while hunting, a piece of skin, which, from the name and description may be considered the same as that used at present by the gold-beaters, was applied to the wound. The emperor, however, died in consequence of this wound, after it had become inflamed under the pellicle, which, in large wounds, and when the skin is suffered to remain too long, is commonly the case, though the poison alone would have been a sufficient cause of death. Reaumur and others are astonished that artists should have sought for and found a part of their apparatus in the bowels of an ox; but I am of opinion that this pellicle, which is sometimes separated in washing and cleaning the bowels, was first observed by the butchers, and made known by them as a plaster; and that it came into request among the German gold-beaters, as the finest of all the pellicles then known, in the beginning of the seventeenth century.

The art of gilding, and particularly unmetallic bodies, was much facilitated by the invention of oil-painting; but it must be acknowledged that the process employed by the ancients in cold-gilding was nearly the same as that used at present. Pliny says[700 - Lib. xxxiii. § 20, p. 616.] that gold leaves were applied to marble with a varnish, and to wood with a certain kind of cement, which he calls leucophoron. Without entering into any research respecting the minerals employed for this cement, one may readily conceive that it must have been a ferruginous ochre, or kind of bole, which is still used as a ground (poliment, assiette)[701 - Plin. lib. xxxv. § 17, p. 685.]. But gilding of this kind must have suffered from dampness, though many specimens of it are still preserved. Some of the ancient artists, perhaps, may have employed resinous substances, on which water can produce very little effect.

That gold-leaf was affixed to metals by means of quicksilver, with the assistance of heat, in the time of Pliny, we are told by himself in more places than one. The metal to be gilded was prepared by salts of every kind, and rubbed with pumice-stone in order to clean it thoroughly, and to render the surface a little rough[702 - Lib. xxxiii. § 32, p. 622. “Cum æra inaurantur, sublitum bracteis pertinacissime retinet. Verum pallore detegit simplices aut prætenues bracteas. Quapropter id furtum quærentes ovi liquore candido usum eum adulteravere.” See also sect. 42, p. 626. I acknowledge that this passage I do not fully comprehend. It seems to say that the quicksilver, when the gold was laid on too thin, appeared through it, but that this might be prevented by mixing with the quicksilver the white of an egg. The quicksilver then remained under the gold; but this is impossible. When the smallest drop of quicksilver falls upon gilding, it corrodes the noble metal, and produces an empty spot. It is therefore incomprehensible to me how this could be prevented by the white of an egg. Did Pliny himself completely understand gilding? Perhaps Pliny only meant to say, that many artists gave out the cold-gilding, where the gold-leaf was laid on with the white of an egg, as gilding by means of heat. I shall here remark, that the reader may spare himself the trouble of turning over Durand’s Histoire Naturelle de l’Or et d’Argent, Londres 1729, fol. This Frenchman did not understand what he translated.]. This process is similar to that used at present for gilding with amalgam, by means of heat, especially as amalgamation was known to the ancients. But, to speak the truth, Pliny says nothing of heating the metal after the gold is applied, or of evaporating the quicksilver, but of drying the cleaned metal before the gold is laid on. Had he not mentioned quicksilver, his gilding might have been considered as that with gold-leaf by means of heat, dorure en feuille à feu, in which the gold is laid upon the metal after it has been cleaned and heated, and strongly rubbed with blood-stone, or polished steel. Felibien was undoubtedly right when he regretted[703 - Principes de l’Architecture. Paris, 1676, 4to, p. 280.] that the process of the ancients, the excellence of which is proved by remains of antiquity, has been lost.

False gilding, that is, where thin leaves of a white metal, such as tin or silver, are applied to the article to be gilded, and then rubbed over with a yellow transparent colour, through which the metallic splendour appears, is much older than I believed it to be in the year 1780. The process for this purpose is given by the monk Theophilus, whose fragments were first printed in 1781[704 - Lessing zur Geschichte und Litteratur, vi. p. 311.]. According to his directions, tin beat into thin leaves was to be rendered of a golden yellow colour by a vinous tincture of saffron, so that other pigments could be applied over it. The varnish or solution of resin in spirit of wine or oil, used for this purpose at present, appears not then to have been known. But in the sixteenth century this art was very common; and instructions respecting it were given by Garzoni[705 - Piazza Universale. Venet. 1610, 4to, p. 281.], Cardan[706 - De Rerum Var. xiii. cap. 56.], Caneparius[707 - De Atramentis.] and others in their writings. About the same period a pewterer at Nuremberg, named Melchior Koch, was acquainted with the art of communicating a golden colour, in the like manner, to tin goblets and dishes. He died in 1567; and with him, as Doppelmayer says, the art was lost. A method of applying a white metal to paper, and then drawing over it a gold varnish, has been known in China since the earliest periods[708 - Mémoires concernant les Chinois, xi. p. 351.]. At present this method of gilding is practised more in Sicily than in any other country. It appears also to have been used, at an early period, for gilding leather and leather tapestry; and this perhaps was first attempted at Messina, as we are told by John Matthæus[709 - De Rerum Inventoribus, Hamb. 1613, 8vo, pp. 41, 37.], who, however, in another place ascribes the invention to a saint of Lucca, named Cita. But gilt leather was made as early as the time of Lucian, who conjectures that Alexander the impostor had a piece of it bound round his thigh[710 - Luciani Opera, ed. Bipont. v. p. 100.]. The dress of the priests, on the festival of Bacchus, was perhaps of the same kind[711 - Plutarchi Sympos. iv. in fine.].

FUR DRESSES

As long as mankind lived under palm-trees in their original country, between the tropics, they had no occasion to provide either food or clothing: the former was spontaneously supplied by the earth, that is, without care or labour; and the latter in that warm climate was superfluous. The art of cultivating plants, and that of preparing clothes, were not innate, but first taught by necessity; and this did not exist till men, in consequence of their increase, were obliged to spread towards both the poles. In proportion as they removed from their former abode, provisions became scarcer, and the climate colder. Hence arose the breeding of cattle, as well as agriculture; and men then first ventured on the cruelty of killing animals, in order that they might devour them as food, and use their skins to shelter them against the severity of the weather.

At first these skins were used raw, without any preparation; and many nations did not till a late period fall upon the art of rendering them softer, and making them more pliable, durable, and convenient. As long as mankind traded only for necessaries, and paid no attention to ornaments, they turned the hairy side towards the body; but as the art of dressing skins was not then understood, the flesh side must have given to this kind of clothing, when the manners of people began to be more refined, an appearance which could not fail of exciting disgust. To prevent this the Ozolæ inverted the skins, and wore the hair outwards; and in this manner some account for the bad smell which exhaled from their bodies[712 - Pausan. x. 38. p. 895.]. This custom, however, was so general, that Juvenal, where he describes a miserly person, says, “to guard himself against the cold he does not wear the costly woollen clothing of the luxurious Romans, but the skins of animals, and these even inverted, that is to say, with the hairy side turned inwards, without caring whether the appearance be agreeable or not[713 - Sat. xiv. 185.].” In what manner the art of tanning was afterwards found out, Goguet has endeavoured to conjecture from the accounts given by travellers, in regard to the savages in the northern parts of America and Asia, but particularly in regard to the Greenlanders. The far more ingenious method of manufacturing wool, first into felt and then into cloth, seems to have been discovered by the inhabitants of temperate districts, where the mildness of the winter rendered fur dresses unnecessary.